![]() ![]() These institutions collectively did their job-today the Midwest’s colleges and top-tier public universities generate a disproportionate share of the nation’s research, innovation, and talent. In the 20th century, the nation’s earliest community colleges were founded in the region (the first was Joliet Junior College in Joliet, Illinois) to prepare the workforce needed by a rapidly industrializing economy. A major educational innovation was the Civil War-era creation of the Land Grant public university-first established in states of the Midwest-which were designed to provide high-quality, low-cost higher education to the masses, while supporting the growth of agriculture, commerce, and industry. States created public universities (as in my hometown University of Michigan in 1817) to train the teachers, doctors, lawyers, managers, scientists, bookkeepers, and accountants needed in a growing economy and society. In 1858, Kalamazoo, Michigan became the first community in the nation where residents taxed themselves to provide a free public high school education to all residents (an opportunity extended today to higher education by the much-emulated Kalamazoo Promise). The region also created new models for public education and higher education. As farming communities flourished in the early and mid-1800s, religious denominations and towns competed to found and build private and religious colleges on the frontier (Beloit College in Wisconsin, Albion College in Michigan, Kenyon College in Ohio) to both “train up” men and women of faith, and make their communities more attractive to other learned people. The subsequent flood of largely northern European immigrants who settled the region were people of faith who also carried a deep commitment to education. In the words of the Ordinance: “Religion, morality, and knowledge being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged.” Land in every township was set aside for a public school. Informed by the values of Jeffersonian democracy, the Ordinance ordained that the region would have free, not slave, labor and local governments would be close to the people, giving birth to the Midwest’s numerous townships. The Northwest Ordinance, adopted by Congress in 1787, organized the then-territories of the Midwest. How did this rich educational landscape come to be? The Upper Midwest has a special history with education dating back to its initial political organization. Higher education has a strong legacy in the Rust Belt This, in turn, contributes to high and rising incomes in their local communities as my last post revealed, higher education anchors many of the counties boasting above-average incomes in Rust Belt states. These college and university towns, not coincidentally, boast among the highest educational attainment levels across the Midwest (Map 1). Satellite campuses of leading state public university systems are also central to attracting and preparing talent, and serve as anchors for new business growth and economic development in many of the region’s historic industrial and trading cities, such as Duluth (University of Minnesota-Duluth), Green Bay (University of Wisconsin-Green Bay), Marquette (Northern Michigan University), Kalamazoo (Western Michigan University), Athens (Ohio University), and Buffalo (University of Buffalo). ![]() Colleges and universities also help drive many dynamic small and midsized economies, including Iowa City (University of Iowa), Champaign-Urbana (University of Illinois), South Bend (Notre Dame), Bloomington (Indiana University), West Lafayette (Purdue), Evansville (Southern Indiana University), and “boomtown” State College (Penn State). Paul (University of Minnesota), Madison (University of Wisconsin), Cleveland (Cleveland State and Case Western), Columbus (Ohio State University), and Pittsburgh (University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon). Research and learning institutions have been major contributors to the economic transition and revival of many of the region’s major metro areas, including Minneapolis-St. The Midwest’s universities are regional economic anchors ![]()
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