A land grant is a gift of real estate, land or its use privileges, made by a government or other authority as an incentive, means of enabling works, or as a reward for services to an individual, especially in return for military service. Land grants are also awarded to individuals and companies as incentives to develop unused land in relatively unpopulated countries. The process of awarding land grants is not limited to specific countries.
In the United States, a land-grant university is an institution of higher education designated by a state to receive the benefits of the Morrill Acts of 1862, 1890, and 1994. The original Morrill Act provided grants in the form of federal lands to each state, which the states used to establish a public institution to fulfill the acts provisions. The land-grant status has implied several types of federal support over the years, including money appropriated through legislation such as the second Morrill Act and the Bankhead-Jones Act.
Land-grant universities provide research-based programs and resources for residents within their state. The initial intention of having land-grant universities was to provide practical education to agricultural and industrial workers, due to the unavailability of higher education in many locations in the past. Nowadays, educational resources are provided to a much broader audience on a wide variety of topics.
In simple terms, a grant is anything of value that the government awards to a non-government entity. A land grant, then, is land that is given to a person.
