In 1872, the East Alabama Male College which had begun as an affiliation with the Methodist Church had legal control of the institution transferred due to dire financial straits by the church to the state to become the state’s public land-grant university. In 1856, Auburn University was founded in Auburn as the East Alabama Male College, a private school affiliated with the Methodist Episcopal Church.

Auburn University today is a comprehensive land, sea and space grant institution ﾖ among the few that hold that distinction.