Land-grant concept still guides Penn State

University Park, Pa. -- "Land-grant" is a term that will be seen and heard frequently during Penn State's upcoming sesquicentennial year. But in the popular mind, it's also one of the least understood terms in higher education, according to University President Graham B. Spanier.

"People often relate land-grant education to agricultural education, when in fact the context is much broader," Spanier said. "Penn State was a college of scientific agriculture before Congress passed the Land-Grant Act in 1862. That legislation obligated the University to expand its curriculum to include such fields as science, engineering and the liberal arts, and gave Penn State a three-part mission of teaching, research and service that has guided it ever since."

The commonwealth chartered Penn State in 1855 for the purpose of bringing modern science to bear in making agriculture more productive and efficient. That in itself was an innovation, since most colleges of the day emphasized a curriculum that prepared students for the law, theology or medicine.

Congress went a step further in 1862 when it passed the Morrill Land-Grant Act, which aimed "to promote liberal and practical education in the several pursuits and professions of life." The act's sponsor, Rep. Justin Morrill of Vermont, and a few other visionaries -- including Penn State's own president, Evan Pugh -- wanted the federal government to encourage a nationwide system of colleges and universities that offered instruction not just in agriculture but in many other subjects that had utilitarian value.

The legislation also directed land-grant institutions to put a college degree within the financial reach of "the industrial classes" and to disseminate the results of higher learning to the public.

"This is the fundamental concept of land-grant education -- to provide a diverse program of studies that is financially accessible to a broad segment of the population, and to make new knowledge available for the public good," Spanier said.

To give the states the resources to establish and maintain land-grant institutions, Congress allotted federal land to each state. The states were to sell the land and use the proceeds to create endowments. The annual income from these endowments would provide dependable support for colleges that the states designated as land-grant institutions.

In 1863, the General Assembly designated Penn State the commonwealth's sole land-grant institution, thanks to President Pugh's vigorous advocacy of the institution and the fact that it already had met part of the Land-Grant Act's mandate.

Pennsylvania received 780,000 acres of land in the federal domain, mostly west of the Mississippi River, and sold it for a total of $439,000. The General Assembly then converted this amount to a $500,000 bond, which functioned as an endowment. It yielded 6 percent ($30,000) annually to Penn State during those early years.

In return, Penn State began to expand its curricula, although progress was not always steady, particularly in the wake of Pugh's untimely death in 1864. For example, by the 1890s, while agriculture remained important, Penn State had become one of the 10 largest engineering schools in the nation, a distinction that has continued ever since. It also had specialized schools in such fields as mining, languages and literature, and natural science. These programs were forerunners of today's diverse offering of 160 baccalaureate and 140 graduate degree programs.

Since the 1860s, Penn State has developed many sources of income in addition to the land-grant endowment, but it continues to adhere to the original mission of teaching, research and service. Visit http://www.psu.edu/ur/about.html for more information.

For more information on Penn State as a Land-Grant University, visit http://live.psu.edu/landgrant