A land-grant university (also called land-grant college or land-grant institution) is an institution of higher education in the United States designated by a U.S. state to receive the benefits of the Morrill Acts of 1862 and 1890, or a beneficiary under the Equity in Educational Land-Grant Status Act of 1994. There are 106 institutions in all: 57 which fall under the 1862 act, 19 under the 1890 act, and 35 under the 1994 act.
With Southerners absent during the Civil War, Republicans in Congress set up a funding system that would allow states to modernize their weak higher educational systems. The Morrill Act of 1862 provided land in the western parts of North America that states sold to fund new or existing colleges and universities. The law specified the mission of these institutions: to focus on the teaching of practical agriculture, science, military science, and engineering—although "without excluding other scientific and classical studies". This mission was in contrast to the historic practice of existing colleges which offered a narrow Classical curriculum based heavily on Latin, Greek and mathematics.
