With more than 38,000 enrolled students roaming one of the 10 largest university campuses in the country, it’s difficult to imagine a time when MSU consisted of only two buildings and a barn. Yet in 1857, that’s what MSU was: the Agricultural College of the State of Michigan, later to be named Michigan Agricultural College (M.A.C.), with only 63 enrolled students and five faculty members. The small agricultural college was a forerunner for American universities, and with the signing of the Morrill Act in 1862, it became the first public land-grant college in the United States.

Originally a state land-grant institution, the college received an appropriation of 14,000 acres of state-owned land to build upon. After the Morrill Act was signed by President Abraham Lincoln and Congressman Justin Morrill of Vermont, each state in the Union was given 30,000 acres of public land for every member of its congressional delegation. Most states had two senators and one representative at the time, giving each 90,000 acres.

With the act in place, M.A.C. was the nation’s pioneer land-grant university and a prototype for the entire system. The college had three goals in mind: to democratize higher education and expand its opportunities based on merit rather than social class, to find practical applications for scientific research and technological innovations, and to make public service an essential part of higher education’s mandate.

Since then, MSU’s history is filled with milestones, such as admitting female students in 1870, Professor William J. Beal’s achievements in genetic crossing producing hybrid corn in 1877,and Professor Barnett Rosenberg’s discovery of the cancer drug cisplatin in the 1970s.

So today, we thank Congressman Justin Morrill for his dedication to the passing of the Morrill Act. Without its passage 150 years ago, who knows what MSU would be today!

How else has MSU changed since 1862?

Name

Then: State Agriculture College  Now: Michigan State University

Buildings on Campus 

Then: 12  Now: 642

Number of Students Enrolled 

Then: 74  Now: 38,647

Current Events

Then: Civil War, construction of First Transcontinental Railway

Now: Occupy Wall Street, Facebook becomes an IPO