Large universities in the middle of nowhere

[elsmere241]

Well if you're ONLY including things like Pullman and Corvallis, then this thread won't exist for anything east of the Mississippi. As I put in my post, the universities that I listed are the only ones that seemed even moderately close to the definition.

I don't know about that; Salisbury University and Maryland-Eastern Shore come to mind.  (Then again, nearby Cambridge does seem like the middle of nowhere, as would any place on the Virginia Eastern Shore.)

I was basing my comment on the list of the Top 120 universities in enrollment that I posted. UMES isn't on that list.

Now that I think about it, you're right.  UMES has exactly two mailing addresses.

[MikeTheActuary]

Indiana, Illinois, and Iowa are all in cities above 70,000. Iowa City is just a stone's throw from Cedar Rapids - many of its employees actually live there. Champaign Urbana is a metro area of over 250,000. Bloomington is less than an hour away from the Indianapolis metro.

Illinois (UIUC, specifically) has an enrollment of about 48k, employs about 22k people.   Factor in businesses that only exist in C-U because of the presence of UIUC -- both services that support University life, and companies that exist as a result of commercialization of academic projects -- and that pretty much explains the current existence of Champaign-Urbana.

Without UIUC, you'd probably be looking at another Danville or Decatur....maybe even another Effingham.

When I went to UIUC, most of my classmates from Chicagoland perceived it as being out in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by miles of corn and soybean fields.  However, as someone with family ties to the area (I'm fourth generation Illini, own farm property about a half-hour away from campus, and have toyed around with the idea of moving back)....I didn't perceive it as such.

I guess that just highlights the (arguable) problem of the premise of this thread -- "large university" and "middle of nowhere" are both rather subjective terms.

[JayhawkCO]

Indiana, Illinois, and Iowa are all in cities above 70,000. Iowa City is just a stone's throw from Cedar Rapids - many of its employees actually live there. Champaign Urbana is a metro area of over 250,000. Bloomington is less than an hour away from the Indianapolis metro.

Illinois (UIUC, specifically) has an enrollment of about 48k, employs about 22k people.   Factor in businesses that only exist in C-U because of the presence of UIUC -- both services that support University life, and companies that exist as a result of commercialization of academic projects -- and that pretty much explains the current existence of Champaign-Urbana.

Without UIUC, you'd probably be looking at another Danville or Decatur....maybe even another Effingham.

When I went to UIUC, most of my classmates from Chicagoland perceived it as being out in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by miles of corn and soybean fields.  However, as someone with family ties to the area (I'm fourth generation Illini, own farm property about a half-hour away from campus, and have toyed around with the idea of moving back)....I didn't perceive it as such.

I guess that just highlights the (arguable) problem of the premise of this thread -- "large university" and "middle of nowhere" are both rather subjective terms.

Agreed on the subjectivity point, but we're all road nerds. All we have is our subjectivity.

I've spent a good amount of time in that neck of the woods too. I had an ex that was from Effingham. My former brother-in-law was from Mattoon. I've visited a friend that went to school at U of I. That said, "relatively", Urbana/Champaign is the middle of nowhere. It's not a huge metro area. It's not near huge metro areas. That's kind of how I define it.

If you take the school away (population-wise), would the metro area be under, say, 125k people? And then it's over 100 miles away from a metro area of 300k plus? Then that's pretty "middle of nowhere" to me. If the school has over 20k-25k students? Then it's large.

[SEWIGuy]

Indiana, Illinois, and Iowa are all in cities above 70,000. Iowa City is just a stone's throw from Cedar Rapids - many of its employees actually live there. Champaign Urbana is a metro area of over 250,000. Bloomington is less than an hour away from the Indianapolis metro.

Illinois (UIUC, specifically) has an enrollment of about 48k, employs about 22k people.   Factor in businesses that only exist in C-U because of the presence of UIUC -- both services that support University life, and companies that exist as a result of commercialization of academic projects -- and that pretty much explains the current existence of Champaign-Urbana.

Without UIUC, you'd probably be looking at another Danville or Decatur....maybe even another Effingham.

When I went to UIUC, most of my classmates from Chicagoland perceived it as being out in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by miles of corn and soybean fields.  However, as someone with family ties to the area (I'm fourth generation Illini, own farm property about a half-hour away from campus, and have toyed around with the idea of moving back)....I didn't perceive it as such.

I guess that just highlights the (arguable) problem of the premise of this thread -- "large university" and "middle of nowhere" are both rather subjective terms.

People from Chicago think Kane County is the middle of nowhere, so I am not sure that is a great point. 

[DTComposer]

Speaking of California, the California State University system -- which is another public system that does not consist of land grant universities -- are derived from normal schools (aka teacher schools).

Drifting off-topic, but of note is UCLA, which was originally the southern branch of the State Normal School at San Jose (later San Jose State). The southern branch was transferred to the University of California in 1919 to become the southern branch of UC Berkeley, and wasn't formally considered of equal status to Berkeley until 1951.

Chico is the only university that fits this thread; the rest are located in LA/Bay Area/San Diego, and some have grown to be bigger than others (SDSU, Fullerton).

If you're going to include Chico State (14K students, 111K in the urban area), then you should consider Cal Poly San Luis Obispo (22K students, 57K in the urban area) (although the SLO metro is bigger than the Chico metro, but both include more distant urban areas).

What about Humboldt State?

Definitely qualifies on the middle-of-nowhere end, but it's only about 6K students, so I didn't think it met the OP's criteria.

[Rothman]

Even still, when a college "upgrades" to a university satellite campus by then getting rid of their football team, how can the rebranded 4-year school be considered a "major university"?

Tell me about it.  I saw their catalog recently and they don't offer a lot.  I know why they upgraded it, it seemed to be the only reasonable way to keep it open.  I do think its purpose now is to siphoning off the MRS degree seekers from Provo.

(I shouldn't say much more - my wife got her AAS from there when it was Ricks.)

I think they had their accreditation threatened back in the late 1990s and had a scramble to fix their curriculum and resources.  Don't know if they've had issues since.

But..you want to talk about a non-Church owned Mormon college that's got issues, look no further than Southern Virginia in Buena Vista...

[elsmere241]

Even still, when a college "upgrades" to a university satellite campus by then getting rid of their football team, how can the rebranded 4-year school be considered a "major university"?

Tell me about it.  I saw their catalog recently and they don't offer a lot.  I know why they upgraded it, it seemed to be the only reasonable way to keep it open.  I do think its purpose now is to siphoning off the MRS degree seekers from Provo.

(I shouldn't say much more - my wife got her AAS from there when it was Ricks.)

I think they had their accreditation threatened back in the late 1990s and had a scramble to fix their curriculum and resources.  Don't know if they've had issues since.

But..you want to talk about a non-Church owned Mormon college that's got issues, look no further than Southern Virginia in Buena Vista...

I just looked into it a little bit - wow.

[bing101]

Many of the universities mentioned in this thread (including OSU, KSU, and WSU) are land-grant universities that were established by the federal government granting the states a large tract of land, of which a small portion was retained for the campus and the rest sold off to fund the construction and operation of the university. Large tracts of federal land are not found in developed areas. Instead they're in...the middle of nowhere.

Good read!

It also looks like the Morrill Act retroactively designated some colleges as land grants. Several of the colleges named in the 1862 act were already open and operating (Wisconsin, Auburn, Rutgers, Tennessee, Vermont) though the towns they were located in were pretty backwater at the time. Technically, PSU and Michigan State were built before the Morrill Act, but I know that in PSU's case they hadn't actually accepted students and graduated a class.

This also means the University of California system (Berkeley, UCLA, UC Davis, UC San Diego) are all land grants even though some are located next to or inside cities.
Speaking of California, the California State University system -- which is another public system that does not consist of land grant universities -- are derived from normal schools (aka teacher schools). Chico is the only university that fits this thread; the rest are located in LA/Bay Area/San Diego, and some have grown to be bigger than others (SDSU, Fullerton).

UC Davis is one of them that started out as being as the middle of Nowhere but ended up responding to the suburban sprawl of both the Bay Area and Sacramento.

[DTComposer]

Many of the universities mentioned in this thread (including OSU, KSU, and WSU) are land-grant universities that were established by the federal government granting the states a large tract of land, of which a small portion was retained for the campus and the rest sold off to fund the construction and operation of the university. Large tracts of federal land are not found in developed areas. Instead they're in...the middle of nowhere.

Good read!

It also looks like the Morrill Act retroactively designated some colleges as land grants. Several of the colleges named in the 1862 act were already open and operating (Wisconsin, Auburn, Rutgers, Tennessee, Vermont) though the towns they were located in were pretty backwater at the time. Technically, PSU and Michigan State were built before the Morrill Act, but I know that in PSU's case they hadn't actually accepted students and graduated a class.

This also means the University of California system (Berkeley, UCLA, UC Davis, UC San Diego) are all land grants even though some are located next to or inside cities.
Speaking of California, the California State University system -- which is another public system that does not consist of land grant universities -- are derived from normal schools (aka teacher schools). Chico is the only university that fits this thread; the rest are located in LA/Bay Area/San Diego, and some have grown to be bigger than others (SDSU, Fullerton).

UC Davis is one of them that started out as being as the middle of Nowhere but ended up responding to the suburban sprawl of both the Bay Area and Sacramento.

To be fair, UC Davis started out as the agricultural college for Berkeley and was only 15 miles out of Sacramento - by the time it was granted full university status (1959), the Sacramento metro was well over 600,000 people.

[bing101]

Many of the universities mentioned in this thread (including OSU, KSU, and WSU) are land-grant universities that were established by the federal government granting the states a large tract of land, of which a small portion was retained for the campus and the rest sold off to fund the construction and operation of the university. Large tracts of federal land are not found in developed areas. Instead they're in...the middle of nowhere.

Good read!

It also looks like the Morrill Act retroactively designated some colleges as land grants. Several of the colleges named in the 1862 act were already open and operating (Wisconsin, Auburn, Rutgers, Tennessee, Vermont) though the towns they were located in were pretty backwater at the time. Technically, PSU and Michigan State were built before the Morrill Act, but I know that in PSU's case they hadn't actually accepted students and graduated a class.

This also means the University of California system (Berkeley, UCLA, UC Davis, UC San Diego) are all land grants even though some are located next to or inside cities.
Speaking of California, the California State University system -- which is another public system that does not consist of land grant universities -- are derived from normal schools (aka teacher schools). Chico is the only university that fits this thread; the rest are located in LA/Bay Area/San Diego, and some have grown to be bigger than others (SDSU, Fullerton).

UC Davis is one of them that started out as being as the middle of Nowhere but ended up responding to the suburban sprawl of both the Bay Area and Sacramento.

To be fair, UC Davis started out as the agricultural college for Berkeley and was only 15 miles out of Sacramento - by the time it was granted full university status (1959), the Sacramento metro was well over 600,000 people.

True too places along the I-80 corridor from Fairfield to Davis at one point was considered the middle of Nowhere but in the 2020's they have to respond to the suburban sprawl of both Sacramento and Bay Area at the same time.

[Mr_Northside]

Yeah, Penn State would fit the bill in my opinion. Sure, State College constitutes its own metropolitan area, but it sure does feel like it's in the middle of nowhere if you go just a few miles out in any direction, and it's 50 to 60 miles away from the nearest municipalities of comparable size (about 55 miles from Williamsport with 27,000 people; about 65 miles from Harrisburg with 50,000 people).

Altoona is about 40mi away with a population of a little over 43,000

[WillWeaverRVA]

Yeah, Penn State would fit the bill in my opinion. Sure, State College constitutes its own metropolitan area, but it sure does feel like it's in the middle of nowhere if you go just a few miles out in any direction, and it's 50 to 60 miles away from the nearest municipalities of comparable size (about 55 miles from Williamsport with 27,000 people; about 65 miles from Harrisburg with 50,000 people).

Altoona is about 40mi away with a population of a little over 43,000

I don't want to admit that I forgot about that so I'll just say Bud Shuster caused me to block the existence of Altoona from my mind instead.

[hbelkins]

The first two schools that came to mind when I saw this thread -- mentioned early on -- were Arkansas, Ole Miss, Mississippi State, and Kansas State. But I would also put KU into that mix. Lawrence isn't exactly in the KC metro area. My brother once had a work function on the KU campus and talked about how long the cab ride was from the KC airport to Lawrence.

What I don't really get are the major state schools that are not somewhat centrally located geographically. I'd put KSU, KU, Arkansas, and West Virginia atop that list. A similar case could be made for Tennessee and Georgia. There's a whole lot of Tennessee to the west of Knoxville and to the southwest of Athens.

[TheHighwayMan3561]

My favorite fun fact about Tennessee's main campus is not just that it's located near neither of the state's two largest cities, but also in a different time zone from them entirely. TN might be the only state that can claim that.

[JayhawkCO]

The first two schools that came to mind when I saw this thread -- mentioned early on -- were Arkansas, Ole Miss, Mississippi State, and Kansas State. But I would also put KU into that mix. Lawrence isn't exactly in the KC metro area. My brother once had a work function on the KU campus and talked about how long the cab ride was from the KC airport to Lawrence.

What I don't really get are the major state schools that are not somewhat centrally located geographically. I'd put KSU, KU, Arkansas, and West Virginia atop that list. A similar case could be made for Tennessee and Georgia. There's a whole lot of Tennessee to the west of Knoxville and to the southwest of Athens.

Lawrence becomes closer to being in the KC metro area every year. The entire K-10 corridor continues to build up more and more. From Lawrence, you can be in the super populated part of Johnson County in 20-25 minutes.

KU and K-State aren't central from an area perspective, but they're central from a population perspective. West of Salina there are very few people.

[WillWeaverRVA]

The first two schools that came to mind when I saw this thread -- mentioned early on -- were Arkansas, Ole Miss, Mississippi State, and Kansas State. But I would also put KU into that mix. Lawrence isn't exactly in the KC metro area. My brother once had a work function on the KU campus and talked about how long the cab ride was from the KC airport to Lawrence.

What I don't really get are the major state schools that are not somewhat centrally located geographically. I'd put KSU, KU, Arkansas, and West Virginia atop that list. A similar case could be made for Tennessee and Georgia. There's a whole lot of Tennessee to the west of Knoxville and to the southwest of Athens.

You can add Michigan to that list, though most of the state's population is focused on the Detroit area, so I suppose it's centrally located populationwise but not geographically.

Florida would work there too, Gainesville is well north of the most populous parts of the state.

[Sctvhound]

Ohio University might be the answer. About 18K enrollment and the town is about 25K population. Take the school out and I bet Athens doesn't have 5,000 people.

75 miles from Columbus, 88 from Charleston, WV, 38 from Parkersburg, WV. But it feels a world away from all those.

[hbelkins]

Ohio University might be the answer. About 18K enrollment and the town is about 25K population. Take the school out and I bet Athens doesn't have 5,000 people.

75 miles from Columbus, 88 from Charleston, WV, 38 from Parkersburg, WV. But it feels a world away from all those.

Ohio U. has that many students? I would never have guessed that.

[NWI_Irish96]

Ohio University might be the answer. About 18K enrollment and the town is about 25K population. Take the school out and I bet Athens doesn't have 5,000 people.

75 miles from Columbus, 88 from Charleston, WV, 38 from Parkersburg, WV. But it feels a world away from all those.

Ohio U. has that many students? I would never have guessed that.

Ohio is a plenty big enough state to have several state schools > 10k.

[bing101]

What does "Middle of Nowhere" mean in today's context some of the colleges I am aware of was located what was then "nowhere" at the time it was built but is now responding to suburban sprawl. 

https://localwiki.org/davis/UC_Merced

https://www.ucmerced.edu/why-ucmerced

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_California,_Merced

UC Merced is one of these places where it started out at nowhere in the past two decades but is now responding to the educational needs of San Joaquin Valley students.  Also how that will make the surrounding areas like Merced, Fresno and Modesto viable to startups is yet to be seen here.

 

[MikieTimT]

The first two schools that came to mind when I saw this thread -- mentioned early on -- were Arkansas, Ole Miss, Mississippi State, and Kansas State. But I would also put KU into that mix. Lawrence isn't exactly in the KC metro area. My brother once had a work function on the KU campus and talked about how long the cab ride was from the KC airport to Lawrence.

What I don't really get are the major state schools that are not somewhat centrally located geographically. I'd put KSU, KU, Arkansas, and West Virginia atop that list. A similar case could be made for Tennessee and Georgia. There's a whole lot of Tennessee to the west of Knoxville and to the southwest of Athens.

If you have ever visited Little Rock, then you'd know why Arkansans (and Texans) would rather spend their young adulthood in Fayetteville instead of at UALR.  It's a world away climatalogically, scenically, and intellectually from the capital that has monopolized most everything else in the state.

[hbelkins]

The first two schools that came to mind when I saw this thread -- mentioned early on -- were Arkansas, Ole Miss, Mississippi State, and Kansas State. But I would also put KU into that mix. Lawrence isn't exactly in the KC metro area. My brother once had a work function on the KU campus and talked about how long the cab ride was from the KC airport to Lawrence.

What I don't really get are the major state schools that are not somewhat centrally located geographically. I'd put KSU, KU, Arkansas, and West Virginia atop that list. A similar case could be made for Tennessee and Georgia. There's a whole lot of Tennessee to the west of Knoxville and to the southwest of Athens.

If you have ever visited Little Rock, then you'd know why Arkansans (and Texans) would rather spend their young adulthood in Fayetteville instead of at UALR.  It's a world away climatalogically, scenically, and intellectually from the capital that has monopolized most everything else in the state.

I'm not disagreeing -- having only been in that area a handful of times, I agree that it's a scenic area -- but the University of Arkansas could have been located in, say, Conway, and it would be much more geographically centered.

[JayhawkCO]

The first two schools that came to mind when I saw this thread -- mentioned early on -- were Arkansas, Ole Miss, Mississippi State, and Kansas State. But I would also put KU into that mix. Lawrence isn't exactly in the KC metro area. My brother once had a work function on the KU campus and talked about how long the cab ride was from the KC airport to Lawrence.

What I don't really get are the major state schools that are not somewhat centrally located geographically. I'd put KSU, KU, Arkansas, and West Virginia atop that list. A similar case could be made for Tennessee and Georgia. There's a whole lot of Tennessee to the west of Knoxville and to the southwest of Athens.

If you have ever visited Little Rock, then you'd know why Arkansans (and Texans) would rather spend their young adulthood in Fayetteville instead of at UALR.  It's a world away climatalogically, scenically, and intellectually from the capital that has monopolized most everything else in the state.

I'm not disagreeing -- having only been in that area a handful of times, I agree that it's a scenic area -- but the University of Arkansas could have been located in, say, Conway, and it would be much more geographically centered.

Maybe they could just put the University of Central Arkansas there.

[Road Hog]

The first two schools that came to mind when I saw this thread -- mentioned early on -- were Arkansas, Ole Miss, Mississippi State, and Kansas State. But I would also put KU into that mix. Lawrence isn't exactly in the KC metro area. My brother once had a work function on the KU campus and talked about how long the cab ride was from the KC airport to Lawrence.

What I don't really get are the major state schools that are not somewhat centrally located geographically. I'd put KSU, KU, Arkansas, and West Virginia atop that list. A similar case could be made for Tennessee and Georgia. There's a whole lot of Tennessee to the west of Knoxville and to the southwest of Athens.

If you have ever visited Little Rock, then you'd know why Arkansans (and Texans) would rather spend their young adulthood in Fayetteville instead of at UALR.  It's a world away climatalogically, scenically, and intellectually from the capital that has monopolized most everything else in the state.

I'm not disagreeing -- having only been in that area a handful of times, I agree that it's a scenic area -- but the University of Arkansas could have been located in, say, Conway, and it would be much more geographically centered.

I stated earlier, the U of A was placed in Fayetteville in 1871 to remove it from the malaria treat. The Little Rock branch of the state university system is as central as it gets, but is struggling and they can go D-II as far as I care. Complete non-factor.

[Rothman]

Anyone mention Colgate University in the tiny Village of Hamilton, NY?

Although SUNY-Morrisville isn't a major university, Morrisville would probably not exist without it.  With Cazenovia College shut down, it makes me wonder how much longer smaller colleges in rural NY will hang on before following suit.