In the midst of the most desperate threat to our nation, President Abraham Lincoln looked beyond the dire present of the Civil War and signed a groundbreaking national commitment to higher education. On July 2, 1862, the Morrill Act created the land-grant system for state educational institutions to foster engineering and agricultural science.
From coast to coast — from the University of Florida to the University of Alaska — every state has benefited from Lincoln’s foresight and a supportive, bipartisan group of legislators. For generations, that was how Washington looked on higher education.