Pre-1900
The government of the Crown Colony of Prince Edward Island identified post-secondary (or higher) education as being necessary to ensure the success of regional industry, specifically fishing, agriculture and commerce as early as 1790. The concept of public education was a new one to Charlottetown, the colony's main settlement with a population of approximately 400 people. Until this time, those who were sufficiently affluent sent their children abroad to study; those parents who could not afford a private education schooled their children themselves in the fundamentals of reading, writing and arithmetic.
In 1804 then Lieutenant-Governor, Edmund Fanning, donated two blocks of his personal property to the Crown to establish an educational institution. It was nearly two decades later that construction of Kent College School began, and the National School, as it was more commonly known, began operation as the first public school in the Colony in Charlottetown in 1821.
It was not until 1825 that the first official legislation was passed by the local assembly to foster higher education. The Act for the Encouragement of Education in the Different Counties and Districts of the Island was the first of a series of education acts developed to establish a Government-supported public university. In 1834, the Central Academy was founded by Royal Charter of King William IV as a training institution to keep up with the demand for teachers as a result of the expansion in population. Reverend Charles Lloyd, an Anglican minister, was appointed Principal when the first class commenced in 1836. In 1860, the Academy was renamed Prince of Wales College in honour of a visit of the future King Edward VII. With the opening of the Central Academy and St. Andrew's College, the island had two government-supported institutions of higher education firmly established in the region.
The Free Education Act passed in 1852 was in response for a desire of providing free education. The significance of this act was that it was not only the forerunner of establishing school districts, but that it also established that the Colonial government would pay the salaries of teachers. At the time of its enactment, it enabled greater access to free education than was available in Britain. In 1854, Saint Dunstan's University (SDU) was founded by the Roman Catholic diocese of Charlottetown as a seminary, but by the mid-20th century had expanded into a small liberal arts university. From 1890 to 1917, SDU had partnered with Laval University in Quebec and awarded joint degrees. This partnership remained intact until 1956 despite SDU receiving a degree-granting charter of its own from the provincial legislature in 1917; however, it did not award its first bachelor's degrees until the spring 1941 convocation.
At the Charlottetown Conference in 1864, representatives from the British North America colonies - Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and the Province of Canada - gathered to discuss Confederation. In 1867, the British North America Act, 1867 was passed by the British government and then given the Queen's assent. It established Confederation and outlined division of responsibility between the provincial and federal governments in several areas, including education. Prince Edward Island entered confederation on July 1, 1873 and joined the Dominion of Canada.
1900 to 1950
At the start of the 20th century, education was receiving strong support from the provincial government; 40% of the provincial budget was assigned to support education. At the time, this was an unprecedented level of funding and considered far more advanced than even Great Britain. With a growing population, a need to expand agricultural education was soon felt to reduce the reliance on imported food. In 1905, wealthy philanthropist Sir William Macdonald, responded to this call for educational reform by sponsoring schools that focused on applied training; Macdonald Consolidated Schools were opened in Nova Scotia, Ontario and New Brunswick in 1903 and in 1905 at Mt. Herbert, Prince Edward Island.
Unrest in Europe would soon affect the new Dominion of Canada. When Great Britain declared war on Germany in 1914, Canada was automatically included as its foreign affairs were still controlled by the British Government. Besides the obvious loss of university-aged young men to fighting, economically it was crippling as income tax was introduced as a "temporary measure" to help pay for the war effort. As a post-war rehabilitation measure, the Dominion Government agreed to provide $10,000,000 in support of technical education in an effort to bolster the economy of the country. In PEI, the focus was still on agrarian needs and the Prince Edward Island Agricultural and Technical School was opened in 1920. The school was short-lived as it ceased operation in 1925.
After the collapse of the western economies in the 1930s, there was little money available to support postsecondary education as Canada was also thrown into severe economic depression. Canada committed to supporting Great Britain in World War II and by the time Germany surrendered in 1945, approximately ten percent of the eleven million Canadians had served in the armed forces, and of those, 45,000 had been killed. There was a recognition that many more skilled workers were needed.
1960s to the present
The provincial government began to acknowledge the serious shortage of skilled workers by the 1960s and financial support for vocational and technical education; as a result, in 1969, Holland College, a public community college created to provide programs in applied arts and technology, vocational training and adult education, was opened by an act of Legislature in order to provide new postsecondary educational choices to PEI residents.
In 1965, Provincial Legislature passed the Prince of Wales College Act which provided it with degree-granting status. By 1969, Legislature passed another act calling for the amalgamation of St. Dunstan's and Prince of Wales Colleges and the incorporation of the University of Prince Edward Island.
Maritime Provinces Higher Education Commission(MPHEC)is created in 1974 to assist Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia and their institutions in attaining a more efficient and effective utilization and allocation of higher education resources.
Atlantic Veterinary College opened in 1986 at University of Prince Edward Island as the only veterinary college in the Maritimes.
The Societé Educative de I'lle-du-Prince-Eduoard opened its doors in 1995 as the first Francophone post-secondary institution in Prince Edward Island at Wellington. Its purpose is to serve as a French Training Centre in partnership with Université Sainte-Anne in Nova Scotia and Université de Moncton in New Brunswick.
University of Prince Edward Island committed to recognizing credits of first and second year courses earned at other Canadian universities in 1995, which significantly improved accessibility for students from Holland College transferring to a university program at UPEI as well as accessibility for out of province students to transfer to the university.
Maritime Provinces Higher Education Commission Act was passed in 2005. Ratified by the Council of Maritime Premiers, the act defined the mandate of the Commission as both improving and providing the best possible service to students as lifelong learners in the provinces of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island.