Land Grab-Ohio

Ohio’s largest and most prestigious college, The Ohio State University, proudly displays its heritage as a land-grant university. The university's website also hosts a “Land Grant Fierce” section. In Columbus, the Land-Grant Brewing Company has exploded in recent years, becoming a 40-person company in just five years. You can now see cans stamped with “Land Grant” at grocery stores from Cincinnati on up to Mansfield.

But this “Land Grant” pride masks that Ohio’s flagship educational system was actually a “Land Grab.” For the first time in history, High Country News has documented 99% of all the land grants and traced them back to their benefactors. They have teamed up in a joint collaboration with Eye on Ohio to look at the actual properties that went into Ohio State.

The goal is to document how this affects their readers, viewers, and listeners.