In the fall of 2000, President John Peters announced that Northern Illinois University had been accepted as the newest member of the nation’s most prestigious public higher education association – what was then known as the National Association of State Universities and Land-grant Colleges, or NASULGC.

“Given our role, our mission, the size of our organization and the impact we have on the region, it seemed to me that NIU fit perfectly in the NASULGC profile,” Peters explained. “I’m pleased to announce that the NASULGC leadership also saw NIU as an excellent fit in an organization of the nation’s top universities.”

NASULGC President Peter Magrath said the association’s membership is made up of those top universities with specific missions involving economic development and societal improvement.

“America’s state universities and land-grant colleges – all of them truly peoples’ universities – are a marvelous enterprise that has served our nation superbly,” Magrath said.  “NIU and its fellow NASULGC universities are a critical part of public higher education, essential to the well-being of our nation’s economy and society.”

At the time NIU was admitted, only 210 of more than 4,000 American colleges and universities were members of NASULGC. In Illinois, only NIU, the University of Illinois and SIU were members. NASULGC member institutions at the time enrolled more than 3.2 million students, about a quarter of whom were members of racial and ethnic minority groups.

NASULGC/APLU was founded in 1887 and remains the nation’s oldest non-profit higher education association.

In 2009, NASULGC changes its name to the simpler Association of Public and Land-grant Universities, or APLU.

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