St. Cloud State began in 1869 as the Third State Normal School, occupying a single building -- the Stearns House, a former hotel that the state legislature purchased for $3,000. The faculty numbered five, led by Principal Ira Moore. Of the first fifty students, forty were women. When the Old Main building opened in 1874, the Stearns House was converted entirely into a women's dormitory. Male students formed a boarding club and found lodging in a house near campus, supervised by a matron. The institution changed names four times over the next century: State Normal School at St. Cloud in 1873, St. Cloud State Teachers College in 1921, St. Cloud State College in 1957 when the word 'Teachers' was dropped, and finally St. Cloud State University in 1975 when it reorganized into five colleges and a graduate school. The first bachelor's degrees were awarded in 1925. Applied doctoral degrees did not arrive until 2007.

Brooks's legacy transformed SCSU athletics. The men's hockey team has made 19 NCAA tournament appearances, reaching the 2013 Frozen Four. That season, co-captain Drew LeBlanc won the Hobey Baker Award, the most prestigious honor in men's college hockey. The team claimed the WCHA league title and MacNaughton Cup in 2013, won the inaugural NCHC Penrose Cup in 2014, took the NCHC Frozen Faceoff tournament in 2016, and captured another Penrose Cup in 2018 with a 16-4-4 conference record. Women's hockey, added in 1998, competes at the Division I level in the WCHA. Off the ice, the Huskies wrestling program became a dynasty, winning five NCAA Division II national championships in 2015, 2016, 2018, 2019, and 2020, with second-place finishes in 2011, 2012, 2013, and 2017. Women's basketball dominated the North Central Conference from 1982 to 1990 with a 179-58 record and three NCAA quarterfinal appearances.

The numbers tell a stark story. In 2010, St. Cloud State enrolled roughly 18,000 students. By 2024, that figure had fallen to roughly 10,000, and only about 5,000 of those were traditional full-time students. The rest included part-time students and approximately 2,500 high schoolers enrolled in Post-Secondary Enrollment Options courses. The decline brought severe financial strain: a net loss of $18 million in 2023 and a budget deficit of $14.4 million in 2024. The university cut 42 degree programs and 54 full-time faculty positions in 2024. Plans to demolish unused buildings and create green spaces reflect a campus physically contracting to match its smaller population. It is a pattern playing out at regional public universities across the country, where demographic shifts, online competition, and changing student preferences have reshaped the higher education landscape.

KVSC 88.1 FM began broadcasting on May 10, 1967, making it one of the longest-running college radio stations in Minnesota. The station hosts a 50-hour trivia contest dating back to 1980 and produces Granite City Radio Theatre, a live community event that draws on the old tradition of radio drama. UTVS, the campus television station, airs student-produced content around the clock. These outlets represent something the enrollment numbers cannot measure: the university's role as a cultural anchor for the city of St. Cloud and surrounding central Minnesota. The campus sits along the Mississippi River, the same waterway that drew fur traders and settlers to the region in the 19th century. Today it offers over 200 undergraduate programs, more than 60 graduate programs, and three doctoral programs. SCSU remains the only Minnesota university with an ABET-accredited manufacturing engineering program -- a quiet distinction in a state better known for its liberal arts traditions.