On February 16, 1893, the Agricultural College of the State of Montana was founded as the state's land-grant college. Renamed The Montana College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts, the institution was popularly known as Montana Agricultural College, or MAC. By the 1920s, the institution's preferred name was Montana State College and so it remained until July 1, 1965, when, in recognition of the enormous advances in the College's commitment to scientific and humanistic research, the thirty-ninth legislative assembly of the state of Montana changed MSC's name to Montana State University.

Today, Montana State University Bozeman has a national and international reputation for its excellence in undergraduate and graduate education in the liberal arts and sciences, agriculture, architecture, education, engineering, health and human development, and nursing. It is routinely listed by U.S. News and World Report as one of America's "best buys" for undergraduate education and ranks among the leaders in the number of Goldwater scholarship recipients. It is an institution committed to making history by better positioning today's students for meaningful lives in the globalizing economy of the 21st century.