Missouri University of Science and Technology, commonly Missouri S&T and formerly known as the University of Missouri–Rolla and originally Missouri School of Mines and Metallurgy, is a public space grant university located in Rolla, Missouri, United States and a member institution of the University of Missouri System. Most of its 8,838 students (Fall 2016) study engineering, business, sciences, and mathematics. Known primarily for its engineering school, Missouri S&T offers degree programs in business and management systems, information science and technology, sciences, social sciences, humanities, and arts.HistoryMissouri S&T was founded in 1870 as the Missouri School of Mines and Metallurgy, the first technological learning institution west of the Mississippi River. Early in its history, the School of Mines was focused primarily on mining and metallurgy. Rolla is located close to the Southeast Missouri Lead District which produces about 70% of the U.S. primary supply of lead as well as significant amounts of the nation's zinc.The school was founded under the auspices of the University of Missouri in Columbia in order to take advantage of the Morrill Land-Grant Acts to "teach such branches of learning as are related to agriculture and the mechanic arts, in such manner as the legislatures of the States may respectively prescribe, in order to promote the liberal and practical education of the industrial classes in the several pursuits and professions in life." The act endowed Missouri a federal land grant of 30,000 acres for each of the state's two senators and nine representatives at the time—or 330,000acre. The endowment said that the land could not be sold for less than $1.25/acre and as such as was a minimum endowment of $412,500 for Missouri. There was an intense debate in the state over the location and number of schools before it was finally decided to have one school in Columbia and a branch in the mining area of southeast Missouri.
