The Morrill Act

Public funding of universities and other institutions of higher education has a long pedigree in the United States. Even in the midst of the Civil War, Congress still believed financing for higher education to be a priority and passed the Land Grant Act of 1862 — often referred to as the Morrill Act, after its sponsor, Congressman Justin Smith Morrill of Vermont. This legislation allocated to every state that had remained in the Union 30,000 acres of land for each member of its congressional delegation, and this land was to be sold to provide an endowment for a state to found a college. The legislation clearly intended to foster state economic development by establishing “Colleges for the Benefit of Agriculture and the Mechanic Arts.” Although each college was free to determine the details of its own curriculum, nonetheless Section 4 of the bill specified that for the institutions it launched, the “leading object shall be, without excluding other scientific and classical studies, and including military tactics, to teach such branches of learning as are related to agriculture and the mechanic arts, in such manner as the legislatures of the States shall respectively prescribe, in order to promote the liberal and practical education of the industrial classes in the several pursuits and professions in life.”

The Morrill Act led to the founding of more than 70 original land grant institutions; subsequent 1890 legislation extended the system to the 16 southern states. Land grant institutions continue as important components of the successful U.S. system of higher education and include Cornell University, Iowa State University, Kansas State University, the University of Kentucky, Michigan State University, the University of Minnesota, the University of Missouri, Pennsylvania State University, Rutgers University, the University of Vermont, and the University of Wisconsin.