History
Tradition of Academic Excellence
The College of Agricultural Sciences was the first of the eleven colleges established at Penn State, which began in 1855 as the Farmers' High School. The sixty-nine students in the first class were taught by five faculty members. The level of instruction was high, and graduate study soon was offered. In 1862, the institution became the Agriculture College of Pennsylvania. Two months later, on July 2, President Abraham Lincoln signed the Morrill Land-Grant Act, which offered each state free public land that it could sell to endow institutions of higher learning. The institutions were "to teach such branches of learning as are related to agriculture and the mechanic arts . . . in order to promote the liberal and practical education of the industrial classes in the several pursuits and professions of life." In 1863, the Pennsylvania legislature designated the Agricultural College as the land-grant college of the Commonwealth. The College broadened its instruction and began to admit female students, increase its enrollment, and enlarge its facilities. In 1874, the institution's name was changed to The Pennsylvania State College.
Over the years, Penn State gained recognition as a leader in higher education and in 1953 was renamed The Pennsylvania State University. Today, Penn State is a multicampus institution with undergraduate programs at twenty locations around the state. The University offers more than 160 baccalaureate and more than 20 associate degree programs. Graduate students may choose from more than 140 approved fields of study. In addition, the College of Medicine at The Milton S. Hershey Medical Center in Hershey offers M.D., M.S. and Ph.D. degree programs. The original student body of 69 has grown to nearly 70,000 and the faculty to more than 5,000.
Penn State's College of Agricultural Sciences has approximately 2,100 students enrolled and about 240 faculty members. Undergraduate students can choose from among 19 major and 22 minor programs in Agricultural Sciences. The College offers almost 800 individual courses. Cooperative Extension educational programs are conducted in all sixty-seven counties in Pennsylvania.