Richard Ha writes:
Before there were land grant colleges, only the socially advantaged got a higher education. There were no public colleges.
Land grant colleges were formed in order to educate the masses; president Abraham Lincoln signed the legislation that created them. I wrote more about the history of land grant colleges here.
They are probably why the U.S. agricultural sector has led the world in food production for so many years. This blog post below asks a very significant question.
From the Western Farm Press blog:
Where would agriculture be without university research?
by Todd Fitchette May 13, 2014
My fascination with agriculture developed when I was assigned the Ag beat with a daily newspaper. I quickly learned just how important agriculture was to the area I was living in at the time and the different things those who worked in it had to accomplish on a regular basis….
American agriculture owes much of its success to the land grant institutions and the work of cooperative extension. In my state that institution is the University of California. The farm advisor has proven to be an invaluable part of the commercial farming operation, regardless of its location in the United States….