When choosing a university does the term "Land Grant" influence you? (Ivy League, degrees)
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University of Alaska Fairbanks, a land grant school. There is no agriculture here other then a small field the university uses to research wheat and such in arctic conditions.
I suspect that because in the way past, Land Grant, for right or wrong, was typically associated with agricultural pursuits and with being the door for more average (IE farmers and workers) kids to go to college. So perhaps the term still has a similar emotional appeal in more agricultural areas.
Also, add Clemson as another Land Grant not named after their state.
Eh. I grew up in a region synonymous with agriculture and not much else. But very, very, very few of my peers opted to continue in agriculture. "Land Grant" was not a key phrase for me when researching schools. "Private liberal arts" was.
Cornell is not land grant exactly, some of its colleges are but they are not part of the SUNY system. They are fully controlled by Cornell, it's like the state just cut them a deal to run those for them or something. The whole university is private.
Land grant universities traditionally focused on the agricultural and mechanical arts, the latter growing into engineering. By original dictum, there was emphasis on military education, and today some land-grant universities still maintain a corps of cadets (example: Virginia Tech). Land grant universities tend to be in rural locations, though in many cases a sizable college-town has grown around the flagship campuses.
The main blight against land-grant colleges is their typical lack of aristocratic pedigree and prestige. Occasionally if a state has a "University of..." which is not land-grant, and a "... State University" which is land-grant, the latter excels in engineering, while the former emphasizes the pure sciences, the humanities, law and medicine. So the tension between land-grant and not-land-grant mirrors the tension between the professions of engineering and law/medicine.
I majored in engineering, starting my undergrad studies at a land-grant school, and subsequently transferring to a non-land-grant public state flagship school. But the cultural atmosphere in the non-land-grant school was substantially more to my liking.
Cornell yes, because it is a hybrid and part of it is part of the SUNY system. Dartmouth College is not, it's a private institution. Perhaps you are thinking of UMass Dartmouth?
Hmm, well, I'm reading a book about Dartmouth and its history educating Native Americans, and it says the founder got some land granted to the project. But I'm only at the beginning, so it's not entirely clear, yet.
I'm from Berkeley, and no one in my HS knew, none of my friends who went there knew that. The school doesn't advertise it. No one talks about it. It's not relevant to anything.
The University of California at Berkeley is a land grant university. I doubt anyone attending there knows that, though.
Or cares. If they got in, they're generally grateful to be there.
Add Purdue to the land grants not with a state name in its title. Also, in Arizona, the University of is the land grant school and Arizona State is not. Yet people who attend the U of A seem to think they are in the most prestigious of the state's three major universities (Northern Arizona University is the third).
Many people know and don't care, because it really does not matter.
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