One of the nation's few public liberal arts colleges, UMM's mission is highly distinctive as an academically rigorous, public undergraduate liberal arts college. Established by the University of Minnesota Board of Regents in 1959, the guiding principles of selective admissions and academic excellence in a residential campus atmosphere have become ever stronger during the following decades. UMM has repeatedly received national recognition for its distinctive mission and strong academic quality, including feature articles in Money magazine, U.S. News and World Report, Kiplinger's Changing Times, and rankings in Peterson's Guide to Competitive Colleges and the Fiske Guide to Colleges. It is one of seven public institutions ranked by the Carnegie Foundation as a national liberal arts college. Twenty-seven majors are offered.
Students often assist faculty in research and professional activities.
UMM is built on a 100-year old campus, originally an American Indian boarding school and later an agricultural boarding high school. The college has grown from an initial enrollment of 238 students in 1960 to nearly 2,000 students, over 350 faculty and staff, and nearly 8,700 graduates. The student body is predominantly of traditional age. The 1998 median high school rank percentile of entering freshmen is 87. The college is one of four campuses of the University of Minnesota, the state's land grant and doctoral research institution.