History of Michigan State University

The history of Michigan State University dates back to 1855,^[3] when the Michigan Legislature established the Agricultural College of the State of Michigan under the encouragement of the Michigan State Agricultural Society and the Michigan Farmer, the state's leading agricultural periodical. As the first agricultural college in the United States, the school served as a model for other institutions of its kind established in the period, to give an instance, the Agricultural College of Pennsylvania.

Together with the Agricultural College of Pennsylvania (now Pennsylvania State University), the College became one of the first two land-grant institutions under the Morrill Act enacted during Abraham Lincoln's presidency. This earned the school the title of "The Nation’s Pioneer Land Grant College".^[4] The first class graduated in 1861 right after the onset of the American Civil War. That same year, the Michigan Legislature approved a plan to allow the College to adopt a four-year curriculum and grant master's degrees. In 1870, the College became co-educational and expanded its curriculum beyond agriculture into a broad array of coursework commencing with home economics for women students. The school admitted its first African American student in 1899. In 1885, the College had begun offering degrees in engineering and other applied sciences to students.

After World War II, its president John A. Hannah began the largest expansion in the university's history, aided by the G.I. Bill, and the university has grown to become one of the largest universities by enrollment in the United States with over 50,000 students as of 2014 since then.^[5] In its centennial year of 1955, the state officially made the college a university, and the current name, Michigan State University, was adopted in 1964.