The name originates as a perforative for small tuition-dependent non-research teaching colleges. Those colleges mostly catered to pastors, teachers, etc. and were located in small towns. The historical reasons that these institutions are now "in the corn fields" provides an interesting topic for historical inquiry. Perhaps many are in old rail-road or factory towns that have since languished, but schools that were similar at time of founding and didn't die are in industrial and post-industrial hubs where they attracting the attention needed to thrive. Who knows. The point is that they are small, inconsequential institutions that are predominately located in rural and semi-rural towns.'
The name now includes small state schools -- usually branch campuses with lower enrollment and no major (R1) research output.
(NB: corn row colleges are also by definition non-elite, so small liberal arts colleges with billion dollar endowments which might otherwise count, don't).
Many such institutions have since started offering graduate (or at least non-bachelors) degrees and certificates that are somehow even more worthless than their undergraduate programs.
Apparently the name has a lot of different meanings these days -- see sibling comments -- but it has DEFINITELY never been meant as a racial pejorative. If anything, exactly the opposite, since most of those "crap-tier midwestern/southern colleges" cater to 99.99% WASP social networks (the P is even explicit).
As I understand it, the Northwest Ordinance provided for the funding of schools, resulting in the "land grant" college system that still exists today. The most well known land grant colleges are of course the "flagship" universities of the Midwest states. But the states also chartered many smaller, regional, and specialized schools.
I live in Wisconsin, and the state university system is chartered to serve the needs of the state. There are too many students to send them all to UW in Madison, so there are a number of smaller regional universities, many of which now offer graduate degrees, plus an even larger number of "commuter" and "satellite" schools, and an elaborate technical college and trade school system. Not everybody can get a degree at a residential college. Life gets in the way.
We can debate the relative prestige of these colleges, but I've worked with people who attended the regional schools, including many engineers and computer programmers. All I can say is, send me more.
The colleges that catered to pastors were largely private, and in my home state, there was one in every town. Some of them emerged as full service 4-year colleges with additional programs. My undergraduate college was nominally "Christian" but I got a secular science education there, and it was well ranked in science. It also adjoined a seminary where I never set foot.
Yes. As far as I understand, "corn row colleges" wasn't originally a reference to branch campuses of state schools. "corn row college" referred exactly to those tiny private places.
I agree with your assessment that most of Wisconsin's land grants are quite good, btw. YMMV in other states, unfortunately.
> The point is that they are small, inconsequential institutions that are predominately located in rural and semi-rural towns.
Wow, coastal elitism much?
There are surely many degree mills and garbage universities, but to conflate their worth with their location is both injurious to discourse, and incorrect.
I (non-American, not a native English speaker) thought it was a pejorative reference to rural universities; ("hick" / "rube") state universities of Midwestern states etc.
The hairstyle is named after its resemblance to the agricultural arrangement, not the other way 'round, and the name of the hairstyle only makes sense if you're aware of how fields are planted. You have to look really hard to make a racial slur out of it.
First time I've heard the term "corn row colleges". Google's not bringing up anything that looks relevant.
I suggest picking something else. Given that "cornrows" are a predominantly black hairstyle, the term reads like a racial slur.