On November 13 by Kaia Ryden

Metro was founded in 1971, under the name Minnesota Metropolitan State College. It was originally created for non-traditional students (such as working adults) whose needs weren’t met by the other colleges that were around at that time, such as the University of Minnesota. In the beginning, there wasn’t really even an official building. There were some office spaces above a Walgreens and rented classrooms throughout the Twin Cities Metropolitan Area.  

By 1975, the name was changed to Metropolitan State University. 

In 1992, Metro moved its headquarters into a vacant building that used to house St. John’s Hospital. 

The University now serves more than 10,000 students! What started as a small school that rented out classrooms has now become one of the top public schools in the state. 

Although Metro hasn’t been around for a long time, it’s served 5 whole decades of students. My great grandmother took classes here, and now so am I. I know of people that were born at St. John’s before Metro took it over, including a past Metro professor, who wrote a short essay about that. You can read it here. 

I think that this university has such a story behind it, and if we just take a little deeper look into it, we’ll see the rich history that has surrounded this school since the 70’s.  

Over the years, Metro has received many awards, from back in 1995, when Metro received the Hesburgh award for its continued focus on improving teaching, to Nancy J Black, a professor from 1998, winning the Professor of the Year Award, all the way to currently, where Metro was placed in the top 3 percent nationwide in the “Social Mobility Index“.  

Metro is a great school, with great people who are ready and willing to help you further your education, no matter where you are in your life.