All campuses: 55,043
Men: 26,890
Women: 28,153
Minorities (not including international students): 7,335
International students: 4,046
Undergraduate programs: More than 170 areas of study, 10,500 courses, and 19 colleges
Faculty and staff: 2,980 full-time faculty and more than 14,000 full-time support staff
Undergraduate student to faculty ratio: 13:1; 89% of freshman-level classes have 50 students or less; only 6% have more than 100 students
Class profile: Nearly 70% of our freshmen come from the top 25% of their high school classes; 35% come from the top 10%.
Tuition and fees: Our tuition is the third lowest in Ohio and among the lowest in the nation. Fees for 2001-02 (Columbus campus): Ohio residents, $4,788; nonresidents of Ohio, $13,554; more than half of our students receive scholarships or financial aid.
Size of Columbus campus: 1,705 acres
History
Founded in 1870, The Ohio State University is widely recognized as one of America's distinguished major universities. Since enrolling its first students in 1873, it has awarded more than 413,000 degrees. With a regular faculty of over 3,300, the nation's largest single-campus enrollment of some 54,000 students (60,000 on all campuses), and a comprehensive curriculum of more than 11,000 courses, Ohio State offers a learning environment few universities can match.
Ohio State's roots go back to 1870, when the Ohio General Assembly established the Ohio Agricultural and Mechanical College. The new college was made possible through the provisions of the Morrill Act, commonly known as the Land Grant Act, which was signed into law by President Abraham Lincoln on July 2, 1862. It sought to make higher education available to all young people who had the desire and ability to profit from a college education. The legislation provided for the proceeds from the sale of public lands to be used by the states to finance colleges whose "leading object" was to "promote the liberal and practical education of the industrial classes," primarily in the areas of agriculture and mechanics. The act revolutionized the nation's approach to higher education, bringing a college degree within reach of all high school graduates.
Under the terms of the act, Congress granted the state of Ohio 630,000 acres of land that later sold on average for 54 cents an acre. On March 22, 1870, the General Assembly chartered the University with "An Act to Establish and Maintain an Agricultural and Mechanical College in Ohio." The land-grant sales financed the beginning of the University, and income from the resulting fund supported the institution without regular public appropriations for its first 20 years.
