Metropolitan State University history

David E. Sweet was appointed the university's first president and the school, with offices above a drug store in downtown St Paul, admitted the first class of 50 students in 1972.

The College became the thirty-first institution of the University System of Georgia and began classes in September 1974 with an initial enrollment of 504 students.

Full course description for From Reagan to Obama to Trump: America Since 1980

In 1983, the first graduate students enrolled in the Master of Management and Administration program.

In 1994, Metropolitan State welcomed freshmen students for the first time, offered graduate programs in nursing and business administration, and celebrated its 10,000th graduate.

The institute won the prestigious National Hesburgh Award for quality of teaching in 1995.

In 1997, the university won the Quality-of-Life award from the Greater Minneapolis Chamber of Commerce for conducting 25 community service projects to celebrate its 25th anniversary.

Metropolitan State was selected in 2008 for community engagement classification by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.

Fall 2009, Atlanta Metropolitan College opened its first instructional site at 34 Peachtree.

The university was selected for reclassification in 2015 by the Carnegie Foundation, citing evidence that community engagement had become deeper, more pervasive, better integrated, and sustained.

CollegeNet's 2020 "Social Mobility Index" places Metropolitan State in the top 3 percent nationwide, and first in Minnesota, in enabling students to move from lower income strata into the middle class.