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University of Arkansas

The University of Arkansas, the flagship campus of the University of Arkansas System, resides on a former hilltop farm overlooking the Ozark Mountains to the south. At the university’s founding in 1871, the site was described as “second to none in the state of Arkansas.”

Located in Fayetteville, the university is both the major land-grant university for Arkansas and the state university. The university was created under the Morrill Land-Grant College Act of 1862, whereby federal land sales provided funds for new colleges devoted to agriculture and the mechanic arts, scientific and classical studies, and military tactics, all designed for the liberal and practical education of the industrial classes. The university’s founding satisfied the provision in the Arkansas Constitution of 1868 that the General Assembly establish and maintain a state university.

Citizens in Fayetteville and surrounding Washington County raised $130,000 to secure the university’s location in a statewide competition sparked by the General Assembly’s Organic Act of 1871, providing for the “location, organization and maintenance of the Arkansas Industrial University with a normal department [i.e., teacher education] therein.”Today, the University of Arkansas encompasses more than 130 buildings on 345 acres and provides nearly 200 academic programs, more than some universities twice its size. At the same time, it maintains a low student-to-faculty ratio (currently 17:1) that makes personal attention possible. The university promotes undergraduate research in virtually every discipline and makes higher education affordable with competitively priced tuition and generous financial aid.

Fayetteville is home to more than 68,000 residents, and growing every day. The city occupies the southern tip of a metroplex that runs northward 25 miles along Interstate 540 through Washington and Benton counties in northwest Arkansas.

The metroplex comprises the municipalities of Springdale, Lowell, Rogers, Bentonville and Bella Vista, and is home to major international corporations: Tyson Foods, based in Springdale, is the world’s largest protein producer; J.B. Hunt Transport Services, Inc., headquartered in Lowell, is a major transportation and logistics company; and Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., the world’s largest corporation, has its home office in Bentonville.

A recent Milken Report on the “Best Performing Cities” ranked the region eighth in the country in economic performance, with the third-fastest wage and salary gains in the nation over the last five years. Fayetteville itself has been named “One of America’s Most Livable Cities,” one of the “Top 10 Best Places to Retire,” “One of America’s ‘Hottest’ Cities,” one of the nation’s “least stressful” metro areas, and among the “Best Places to Live in America” by publications such as Frommer’s Guide and Money magazine.


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