Land-Grant Universities

The land-grant movement not only heralded the departure from a purely liberal arts curriculum but also ushered in a commitment to universal access to American higher education (Brubacher & Rudy, 1997; Kerr, 2001; Parker, Greenbaum, & Pister, 2001; Spanier, 1999). Land-grant institutions were established under the Morrill Land Grant Act of 1862. However, the impact of land-grants on national development took many years to be realized as a number of factors (e.g., lack of prepared students and faculty, apathy from the American industrial class) contributed to their slow progress. Today their tripartite mission of instruction, research, and public service is embraced by most colleges and universities across the United States (Johnson, 1981).

Keywords Access; Agricultural Arts; Appropriation; Democratic; Endowment; Experiment Stations; Extension Services; Land-Grant; Mechanical Arts; Morrill Land Grant Act; Research; Service; Teaching

Higher Education > Land Grant Universities

Overview

Importance of Land-Grant Universities

Kerr (2001) called the Morrill Land Grant Act of 1862, which established the land-grant institutions, "one of the most seminal pieces of legislation ever enacted" (p. 35). In general, the land-grant movement ushered in a transformative period in American higher education (Kerr, 2001). It marshaled in a commitment to universal access to the American higher education system and signified a departure from a purely classical liberal arts curriculum (Brubacher and Rudy, 1997; Kerr, 2001). Specifically, by offering technical and practical education geared toward the industrial class, land-grant institutions were intended to be more democratic institutions than their predecessors (Brubacher & Rudy, 1997). In general, the colleges "stood pre-eminently for the principle, increasingly so important in the twentieth century, that every American citizen is entitled to receive some form of higher education" (Brubacher & Rudy, 1997, p. 64). Other higher education scholars have offered similar remarks on the importance of the land-grant movement and its colleges:

• According to Kerr (2001), the land-grant movement "opened the doors of universities to the children of farmers and workers, as well as of the middle and upper classes" (p. 12).

• Spanier (1999) stated that land-grant colleges "democratized higher learning by making a college education widely available and embracing a pragmatic agenda in teaching, research, and extension" (p. 199).

• Parker, Greenbaum, and Pister (2001) wrote that the Morrill Act of 1862 meant "the opportunity to provide both an unprecedented new level of access to higher education as well as the kind of 'practical' education required to industrialize the nation" (p 2).

History

Development of Land-Grant Universities

Important pieces of legislation in the land-grant movement include the Morrill Land Grant Act of 1862, the Second Morrill Act of 1890, the Hatch Act of 1887, and the Smith-Lever Act of 1914 (Kerr, 2001). The first Morrill Act outlined that at least one land-grant institution, which would offer agricultural and mechanical arts alongside the liberal arts and other scientific studies, was to be established in each state (Geiger, 1999). Under the Morrill Act, each state was given public lands and ten percent of the proceeds of the sales of those lands could be used toward establishing a college or experimental farm lands (Rudolph, 1990). All other proceeds were to be put aside in a perpetual endowment (Rudolph, 1990). A second Morrill Act in 1890 also provided for annual appropriations for the land-grant colleges (Rudolph, 1990). The Hatch Act of 1887 provided for experiment stations (Jones, Oberst, & Lewis, 1990). Meanwhile, the Smith-Lever Act of 1914 created the Agricultural Extension Service (Jones et al., 1990; Kerr, 2001). The Hatch Act and the Smith-Lever Act were essential to the livelihood of the land-grant idea because they helped ensure that knowledge from land-grant institutions "could be tested in a real-world setting and effectively transmitted to a public beyond enrolled students" (Jones et al., 1990, p 5). However, these two pieces of legislation only applied to agricultural and not mechanical arts (Jones et al., 1990).

Justin Morrill first introduced the beginnings of the Morrill Act in 1858 in order to promote agriculture, which was seen as key to the nation's prosperity (Duemer, 2007; Key, 1996). However, Morrill's proposal had to wait until the election of Abraham Lincoln and a shift in federal land policy from one of sales to one of donations in order to finally succeed in the summer of 1862 (Key, 1996). In the arguments he made to help secure passage of the act, Morrill mainly focused on the economic benefits that the act would provide to the nation. In sum, he noted that,

The government needed revenue and the best way to produce revenue was to increase prosperity, which could be best accomplished through increased agricultural production. The new colleges would promote agricultural education, which would lead to increased agricultural production, thus increasing national prosperity out of which the needed revenues would flow. (Key, 1996, p. 214)

Granting land for the development of colleges was not something novel to the land-grant colleges (Johnson, 1981). Duemer (2007) stressed that the Morrill Land Grant of 1862 was the continuation of a long-standing practice of supporting educational purposes through land grants. The practice of land grants to support higher education in particular dates back as far as the colonial colleges (Duemer, 2007). Rudolph (1990) noted that state aid was important to the survival of many of the colonial colleges and that state grants of lands to the colleges were among the favorite forms of assistance at that time. Colleges like Dartmouth received grants of lands (Johnson, 1981; Rudolph, 1990). Harvard, Yale, William and Mary, and Michigan were all also recipients of colonial or state land grants (Johnson, 1981).

Institutions focused on agricultural and mechanical arts were also not new to the land-grants. The idea of establishing institutions to advance agricultural education, for instance, dates back as far as the days of George Washington (Duemer, 2007). Also, during the 1850s the efforts of agricultural societies and educational reformers led to the opening of a number of (lower grade) institutional predecessors to the land-grant colleges (Rudolph, 1990). These included the New York State Agricultural College and the Michigan State College of Agriculture at East Lansing (Rudolph, 1990). Yale's Sheffield Scientific School was also chartered before 1860 (Geiger, 1999).

Because the Morrill Act did not specify in what fashion land-grant colleges were to be established, the early colleges took on various forms (Rudolph, 1990). Four states (e.g., Michigan, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Iowa) developed preexisting agricultural colleges into land-grant colleges while other states (e.g., Minnesota, North Carolina) looked to their preexisting state colleges to help them fulfill the land-grant mission (Rudolph, 1990). Some states even turned towards preexisting private institutions to help them fulfill the land-grant mission (Rudolph, 1990). Still, other states (e.g., Texas, South Dakota) developed entirely new colleges as their land-grant institutions (Rudolph, 1990).

Demand for the type of education the land-grant colleges nurtured was not high at the outset (Johnson, 1981). Geiger (1999) noted that "enthusiasm among the industrial classes for education in agriculture or the mechanical arts turned out to be sparse" (p. 52). For one, many of the Western states in which these colleges were developed did not have high schools and could thus not produce students ready for a collegiate education (Brubacher & Rudy, 1997; Johnson, 1981). At the same time, there was also a lack of qualified instructors and teaching materials (Brubacher & Rudy, 1997). For instance, the agricultural professor at Dartmouth let his crops of potatoes and beets freeze in the ground while one individual noted that there were only enough textbooks on agriculture to enable a professor to teach for thirty days (Brubacher & Rudy, 1997; Rudolph, 1990). Agricultural education was also a hard sell to American farmers at that time. In general, most American farmers were apathetic or even hostile towards the land-grant colleges during the first twenty years they were in operation (Brubacher & Rudy, 1997). Some farmers groups complained that the colleges were "too theoretical and classical in their curricular offerings and had little to offer the average farmer" (p. 63). Preparatory departments emerged at many land-grants to help solve the student shortage (Johnson, 1981). Institutions also relied on other types of enrollment inducements, such as scholarships and other forms of assistance (Johnson, 1981).

While enthusiasm for agricultural studies was still low, interest in the mechanical arts began to grow in the 1880s and especially accelerated in the 1890s (Geiger, 1999). This may have been due to the national outlook at the time. According to Rudolph (1990), "The threshold of opportunity in America had shifted from the land to the factory; in combining the agricultural with the mechanical, the land-grant colleges were uniting the past and the future, two schemes of life," (p. 258). However, American farmers were eventually drawn into the land-grant model when evidence showed that scientific agricultural could lead to larger crops and thus a higher income and better standard of living (Rudolph, 1990). The agricultural experiment stations that were funded by the Hatch Act of 1887 particularly helped to provide compelling evidence to farmers (Rudolph, 1990). Rudolph (1990) noted that the stations "combined science and the solution of specific farm problems and helped to demonstrate to skeptical farmers that science could be a friend" (p. 261).

Because of the initial lack of student demand, land-grant institutions' impact on national prosperity was not immediate. Johnson (1981) remarked that the land-grant "colleges' own development had to precede their impact on national development" (p. 339). Those students that actually did attend the institutions early on more often chose to study in the traditional liberal arts fields (Johnson, 1981). For example, between 1870 and 1886 only two of the ninety-three graduates at Ohio State studied agriculture (Kinnison, 1970 as cited in Johnson, 1981). According to Johnson (1981),

The direct developmental impact of the early colleges came after the agricultural experiment stations were established, after research knowledge was given an extension mechanism, after the engineering schools were equipped and well patronized for both training and applied research, and after enrollments in the practicing professions generated thousands, not merely scores, of leaders and specialists. (p. 342)

By 1955 land-grant institutions enrolled more than 20 percent of college students in the United States (Rudolph, 1990). The percentage had increased to about 29 percent by 1976 ("Enrollment at State," 1976).

By the early decades of the twenty-first century, more than 150 years after the passage of the Morrill Land Grant Act of 1862, American agricultural colleges and their historic goal of promoting agricultural research and education are more popular with students than they've been in decades, and “the institutions' path-breaking research and teaching are more critical than ever in a world facing huge population increases, climate change, and shortages of energy, water, and food” (Biemiller, 2012, ¶ 6).

In 2023, the administration of President Joe Biden revealed that sixteen states had been underfunding historically Black land-grant universities for three decades. The largest disparity was in Tennessee, according to letters sent to the governors of each state by Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona and Secretary of Agriculture Thomas Vilsack. The federal officials asked the governors to increase funding for these schools. For example, Tennessee State University was underfunded by $2.1 billion dollars. The other states were Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas, Virginia, and West Virginia.

Further Insights

The Land-Grant Mission

Johnson (1981) proposed that the three-fold academic mission of instruction, research, and public service evolved from land-grant colleges and that this mission is a "description that virtually every institution, public or private, now embraces" (p. 334). Altbach (2001) likewise indicated that land-grant institutions combined "key ideas in American higher education" (p. 14) that spread from the large public institutions to the established private institutions. For instance, land-grant institutions helped to ingrain the notion of direct service to society by engaging in practical research and then spreading the results of that research through means such as extension agents or noncredit courses (Altbach, 2001). Kerr (2001) remarked that the land-grant movement was one of two forces that "molded the modern American university system and made it distinctive" (p. 35).

Origins of the Morrill Land Grant

As noted, many believe that the land-grant movement served to democratize higher education by broadening educational access. However, while principles of access and equity are being realized now, years after the movement, arguments have been made that expanding educational access was not an original intent of the land-grant movement. For instance, Key (1996) argued that, rather than equity, "economics was the chief motivation behind the establishment of American land-grant universities" (p. 199). Geiger (1999) noted that at the outset "land-grant colleges did not meet an exigent popular demand, nor did they appreciably democratize higher education" (p. 52). Johnson (1981) also noted, "If land grants were not new as a device for educational support, neither were they resorted to for purely educational reasons" (p. 335). Likewise, Kerr (2001) remarked that the land-grant movement originated out of the agricultural and industrial development occurring in America around that time. Duemer (2007) similarly stressed that "the agricultural education component of the Morrill Act was an outcome of pressure for the government to take action in encouraging agricultural development" (p. 144). Also, Spanier (1999) noted that the development of the land-grant colleges "stimulated the progress of the agrarian and industrial societies of the past" (p. 199). Yet, some have still held fast to notions that the land-grant movement originally worked to diversify American higher education offerings and expand access to the system. For example, Brubacher and Rudy (1997) framed the evolution of the land-grant colleges in an educational fashion by noting that both dissatisfaction with the traditional American liberal arts college and growing emphasis on scientific research helped fuel the movement.

Regarding the economic arguments behind the Morrill Act, Duemer (2007) also advanced the notion that the support for agricultural development embodied in the Act was a long political struggle. For instance, a recognized need for some political action regarding the status of agricultural affairs in the United States first appeared in the 19th century (Duemer, 2007). Efforts were made to establish a department of agriculture at this time (Duemer, 2007). In 1825 Representative Newton of Virginia summarized the importance of establishing such an office when he offered that 'the encouragement of agriculture and manufactures has ever been considered the best means of developing the resources of a nation' (Congressional Globe, 1825, as cited in Duemer, 2007, pp. 136-137). The debate about establishing such an office continued for many years. In 1849 President Taylor spoke on the issue in Congress and stressed that forming an agricultural bureau would develop the potential of agriculturalists and enhance their contribution to the nation (Duemer, 2007). Likewise, in addressing Congress in 1850 President Fillmore "drew the linkage between agriculture and manufacturing, pointing out how important both were to the nation" (Duemer, 2007, p. 139). It was not until 1862 that a bill to establish a department of agriculture finally passed both the House and Senate and was approved by President Lincoln (Duemer, 2007).

Viewpoints

Demands for Change

Key (1996) suggested that land-grant universities have taken the brunt of the American public's demand for change in higher education. Specifically, these institutions have been the focus of efforts to put more emphasis on teaching over research. Perhaps the reasons for this demand are rooted in the past. Rudolph (1990) offered that the land-grant colleges helped "to change the outlook of the American people toward college-going" (p. 245). Spanier (1999) described land-grants as fulfilling a vision of access, relevance, and service to society while pursuing a mission focused on teaching, research, and public service. Some have said that land-grant institutions have distanced themselves from this original vision and mission (Spanier, 1999). Discussing the case of Penn State University, Spanier (1999) called on land-grant colleges and universities to work together to better integrate their teaching, research, and service functions.

Funding Issues

Like many divisions of higher education, land-grant institutions have faced tough funding issues. For instance, Hebel (2002) reported in 2002 that some land-grants had begun to charge user fees for their extension services or cut down on the array of such services. Since their inception in 1914, federal, state, and county funds had generally supported extension outreach at land-grant institutions, but in the face of declines in such support the institutions have been forced to diversify their approaches to funding (Hebel, 2002). In his 2008 budget, President Bush also proposed cutting earmarks that would benefit land-grant institutions and designating more Hatch Act funding to be awarded on a competitive basis (Fischer, 2007).

According to Huddleston, in 2012 “Draconian cuts in state support have saddled students with crippling levels of debt, and even put higher education out of the reach of some families. These same cuts, by undermining our ability to support basic and applied research, threaten to blunt America's competitive edge in the knowledge-driven 21st century” (Huddleston, 2012, ¶ 5). In response to the funding crisis, land-grant institutions are seeking alternative revenues, promoting public-private partnerships, leveraging intellectual capital, and increasing the reach of capital campaigns. They are also cutting expenses through the use of technology and streamlined administrative processes (Huddleston, 2012).

The Future of Land-Grants

Some scholars seemed to take time out toward the turn of the century to examine the progress and future of land-grant institutions. The Kellogg Commission on the Future of State and Land-Grant Universities existed between 1996 and 2000 and focused on higher education reform (Byrne, 2006). It brought attention to five main areas of the higher education enterprise: the student experience, access, university-public partnerships, the public universities' role in a learning society, and campus culture (Byrne, 2006). Byrne (2006) noted that feedback from higher education leaders collected five years after the work of the Commission indicates that the Commission has primarily influenced institutions' "engagement with society, internationalization of the campus with particular attention to overseas opportunities for students, holistic learning including residential and in-service learning, undergraduate research opportunities, and distant and lifelong learning" (p. ii).

Regarding other examinations on land-grants, Parker et al. (2001) noted that "as we enter a new century, the digital age offers new opportunities, challenges, and tensions for the universities established by the Morrill Act" (p 3). Parker et al. (2001) went on to discuss the nation's ability to remain competitive in this new age and mentioned a crisis in K-12 education as impacting this ability. In referring to the work of the Kellogg Commission on the Future of State and Land-Gant Universities, Parker et al. (2001) noted that as part of their work to form stronger partnerships with state and local communities, the land-grant institutions should link up with K-12 education through a mixture of both face-to-face and "internet-mediated learning activities and collaborations" (p 27).

Had Senator Morrill written his legislation at the turn of the 21st century instead of the middle of the 19th century, he almost certainly would have considered public school education as a major national problem to be addressed by land-grant research universities (Parker et al., 2001, p 17)

Meanwhile, Jones et al. (1990) called for the development of the counterparts of experiment stations and extension services for the mechanic arts, or engineering, in order to help strengthen industry and keep America competitive. The authors stressed those land-grant institutions "have opportunities to turn to an area of critical national need--manufacturing-oriented industrial competitiveness--and apply the model of education, research, and technology transfer they have developed and applied so successfully in agriculture" (p. 19).

With the land-grant institutions survey a changing landscape, Siegel (2012) has called for a reimagining of the corporate/college relationship into one of joined identities, purposes, and imperatives, concluding that such collaborations would “have nothing to do with the evolution of universities into businesses; rather, they promote a co-evolution of our sectors into more effective joint actors in the social arena. Joint action is an alternative to our constrained thinking about how academic and corporate entities should relate, moving us beyond the debate about the corporatization of the academy to focus instead on building our capacity for collaborative contribution. When we start to think in terms of the multiplier effect and creative possibilities of our coupling, rather than the usual unsavory associations, we will already have achieved a significant measure of social progress” (Siegel, 2012, ¶ 13).

Terms & Concepts

Appropriation: an act of a legislature authorizing money to be paid from the treasury for a special use (Barnhart & Stein, 1962)

Democratic: pertaining to or characterized by the principle of political or social equality for all (Barnhart & Stein, 1962)

Endowment: a revenue fund supported by donations; generally, only a portion of the interest on donations is spent while the principle remains intact

Experiment Stations: an establishment in which experiments in a particular line of research or activity, as agriculture or mining, are systematically carried on (Barnhart & Stein, 1962)

Extension Services: courses or programs (e.g., in agriculture or mining) offered by land-grant institutions to members of their communities who do not need to be enrolled at the institutions to benefit from the services offered

Land-Grant (Colleges/Universities/Institutions): under the Morrill Land Grant Act of 1862, each state is to have at least one institution that offers agricultural and mechanical arts alongside the liberal arts and other scientific studies; states were initially given grants of public lands, which could be sold in order to help generate funding, to establish the institutions (Geiger, 1999; Rudolph, 1990)

Legislation: a law or a body of laws enacted (Barnhart & Stein, 1962)

Seminal: an original or ground-breaking work that may set the stage for later developments

Bibliography

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Barnhart, C. L., & Stein, J. (Eds.). (1962). The American college dictionary. New York: Random House, Inc.

Biemiller, L. (2012). As land-grant law turns 150, students crowd into agriculture colleges. Chronicle of Higher Education, 58, A1-A11. Retrieved December 27, 2013, from EBSCO Online Database Education Research Complete.

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Byrne, J. (2006). Public higher education reform five years after the Kellogg Commission on the Future of State and Land-Grant Universities. Washington, DC: National Association of State Universities and Land-Gant Colleges.

Duemer, L. (2007). The agricultural education origins of the Morrill Land Grant Act of 1862. American Educational History Journal, 34 , 135-146. Retrieved August 30, 2007 from EBSCO Online Database Education Research Complete.

Enrollment at state universities and land-grant colleges, fall 1976. (1976). Washington, D.C.: Office of Research and Information, National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED140704).

Fischer, K. (2007, February 16). Bush would shift funds in agriculture. Chronicle of Higher Education, 53 , A31. Retrieved August 30, 2007 from EBSCO Online Database Education Research Complete.

Geiger, R. (1999). The ten generations of American higher education. In P. G. Altbach, R. O. Berdahl, & P. J. Gumport (Eds.), American higher education in the twenty-first century (pp. 38-69). Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press.

Hebel, S. (2002, February 1). Land-grant colleges consider cuts or new fees for extension efforts. Chronicle of Higher Education, 48 , A22. Retrieved August 30, 2007 from EBSCO Online Database Education Research Complete.

Huddleston, M. W. (2012). Morrill at 150: What would Justin do? New England Journal of Higher Education, 1. Retrieved December 27, 2013, from EBSCO Online Database Education Research Complete.

Johnson, E. L. (1981). Misconceptions about the early land-grant colleges. The Journal of Higher Education, 52 , 333-351.

Jones, R., Oberst, B., & Lewis, C. (1990). The land-grant model. Change, 22 , 11-16. Retrieved August 30, 2007 from EBSCO Online Database Education Research Complete.

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Key, S. (1996). Economics or education: The establishment of American land-grant universities. The Journal of Higher Education, 67 , 196-220. Retrieved September 28, 2007 from EBSCO Online Database Academic Search Complete.

Parker, L., Greenbaum, D., & Pister, K. (2001). Rethinking the land-grant research university for the digital age. Change, 33 , 12. Retrieved August 30, 2007 from EBSCO Online Database Education Research Complete.

Rudolph, F. (1990). The American college & university. Athens, GA: The University of Georgia Press.

Siegel, D. J. (2012). Beyond the academic-corporate divide. Academe, 98, 29-31. Retrieved December 27, 2013, from EBSCO Online Database Education Research Complete.

Spanier, G. (1999). Enhancing the quality of life: A model for the 21st-century land-grant university. Applied Developmental Science, 3, 199. Retrieved August 30, 2007 from EBSCO Online Database Education Research Complete.

Suggested Reading

Dunn, D., Gibson, F., & Whorton Jr., J. (1985). University commitment to public service for state and local governments. Public Administration Review, 45 , 503. Retrieved August 30, 2007 from EBSCO Online Database Education Research Complete.

Gee, E., & Spikes, D. (1997). Retooling America's public universities. About Campus, 1 , 30. Retrieved August 30, 2007 from EBSCO Online Database Education Research Complete.

Hardi, J. (2000, March 31). Land-grant presidents call for new `covenant' with state and U.S. governments. Chronicle of Higher Education, 46 , A41. Retrieved August 30, 2007, from EBSCO Online Database Education Research Complete.

Kellogg Commission on the Future of State and Land-Gant Universities. (2000). Renewing the covenant: Learning, discovery, and engagement in a new age and different world. Washington, DC: National Association of State Universities and Land-Gant Colleges.

Simon, L. K. (2013). From land-grant to a "world-grant" university. International Educator, 22, 48-51. Retrieved December 27, 2013, from EBSCO Online Database Education Research Complete.