Land-grant university is a school endowed under the Morrill, or Land-Grant, Act of 1862. Congress granted every state 30,000 acres (12,141 hectares) of land for each senator and representative it had in Congress. The land was to be sold, the proceeds invested, and the income used to create and maintain a college for agriculture and the mechanical arts.
For several years, people had clamored for colleges to teach the finer points of farming and manufacturing. Finally the Land-Grant Act, sponsored by Representative Justin S. Morrill of Vermont, was passed. The act added military science and tactics to the proposed curriculum. Altogether, the states and territories received 11,367,832 acres (4,600,398 hectares) of land. Congress added money to its gifts through the Second Morrill Act of 1890 and an amendment in 1907. Today, all states and Puerto Rico receive federal grants to help support land-grant universities.
Not all the states used the land-grant money as planned by the act. Thirty states, mainly in the Middle West and South, set up new agricultural and mechanical colleges. Eighteen gave the money to state universities to finance new agricultural and mechanical departments. Three gave the money to private colleges. Also, most of the states were unable to sell all the lands given them. The land they did sell was sold at a price so low that the states made almost no money.
But the educational value of the land-grant idea has been priceless. As a result of this program, old colleges have been able to expand, and new colleges have been created. Land-grant schools include such well-known institutions as the University of California and the University of Illinois.
