Alcorn State University

Alcorn State University is a public historically Black land-grant university located in Lorman, Mississippi, in Claiborne County. Founded in 1871, it is the oldest public historically Black land-grant institution in the United States. The university offers undergraduate, graduate, and professional degree programs across disciplines including agriculture, education, business, nursing, and the sciences. Alcorn State University has a strong legacy of preparing educators, public servants, and professionals, and it maintains a rural campus setting with additional instructional sites in Mississippi. Students drawn to Alcorn often seek a campus rooted in the history of Reconstruction-era education and the land-grant mission of teaching, research, and community service.

Alcorn State University was founded in 1871 as Alcorn University during the Reconstruction era to educate formerly enslaved African Americans in Mississippi. Established on the site of Oakland College in Claiborne County, the institution was named for Governor James L. Alcorn. Hiram Rhodes Revels, the first African American to serve in the U.S. Senate, became the university’s first president. In 1878, the institution was designated a land-grant college, strengthening its focus on agriculture and mechanical arts, and it later became known as Alcorn Agricultural and Mechanical College. Women were admitted in the late nineteenth century, and the institution became fully coeducational in the early twentieth century. In 1974, it adopted the name Alcorn State University. Today, Alcorn State University continues its land-grant mission through academic programs, research, and public service in Mississippi and beyond.