A 1969 statewide college board
At 400 West in Salt Lake City stands the headquarters of the Utah System of Higher Education, created on March 21, 1969 when the Utah State Legislature passed the Higher Education Act. The building itself dates to 1926, built as commercial property long before the agency existed, and today oversees Utah's eight public colleges and eight technical colleges.
A commercial building became Utah's college headquarters
You're standing at the Utah System of Higher Education, the state agency that now oversees every public college in Utah. The building under it on 400 West went up in 1926, long before the agency existed. The lot was built for other business and only later became the seat of this office.
The system itself was born on March 21, 1969. That day, the Utah State Legislature passed the Utah Higher Education Act, creating both the system and its first governing body, the State Board of Higher Education. At the time it watched over nine schools and carried out the federal Higher Education Act of 1965 inside the state.
The board changed shape twice more. In 1977, lawmakers renamed it the Utah State Board of Regents and grew it to sixteen members, adding a seat for a student. A 1981 amendment added one more, reserved for the lieutenant governor of Utah.
The last big change came in 2020. The Utah System of Technical Colleges, which ran the state's eight technical schools, was folded into USHE. The Utah State Board of Regents took a new name too: the Utah Board of Higher Education. Today that board has sixteen members, all appointed by the governor, plus two student seats held for one year at a time.
The system grew fast once it got going. In 1969, it enrolled around 40,000 students across nine schools. By 2017, that number had climbed past 189,000, and degrees handed out each year had grown nearly fourfold. As of 2023, USHE counts 234,526 students across its full roster of eight colleges and universities and eight technical colleges.
County records put its construction at 1926, on a lot now sized at 1.63 acres along 400 West. It went up as a commercial property, built for whatever business the block held in the 1920s, not for any college board.
The building's original use faded long before USHE existed. The lot passed through private hands for most of the twentieth century, serving as ordinary commercial space in a working part of downtown Salt Lake City. Only later did it become identified with Utah's public university system, which today runs its administrative offices from near this stretch of 400 West, close to the Gateway district a few blocks north.
The brick walls around you have outlasted nine decades of tenants, and now hold the office that answers for every public college in Utah.
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