Aakers College was a private two-year college with campuses in Grand Forks, North Dakota, Fargo, North Dakota and Bismarck, North Dakota. In 2007, it merged with Rasmussen College and is now known as Rasmussen College. The school offers associate degrees and bachelor's degrees in several fields. Aakers was founded in Fargo in 1902 and a second location was opened in Grand Forks, North Dakota in 1905. The Fargo location was sold in 1912 and the Grand Forks location became the only Aakers for decades. In 1998, the Grand Forks location was closed and operations were again moved to Fargo. The Bismarck campus opened in 2003. Founder Hans H. Aaker, proprietor of Aaker’s Business College, was born on a farm near Ridgeway, Iowa, on the 16th day of April, 1862. His father, Hans O. Aaker, was born in Sauland, Telemarken, Norway, in 1825. He emigrated to Winneshiek county, Iowa, where he was one of the early settlers and for fifty years a prominent and well to do farmer. Ragnild Aaker (née Gutehus), the mother of H. H. Aaker, was born in Hjartdal, Telemarken, Norway, and was married to Hans O. Aaker just before his emigration to this country. Young Aaker received a good primary education and entered Luther ’s College at Decorah, Iowa, where he remained nearly four years, when, coming to the conclusion that a business course would suit him better than preparation for the ministry, he entered a business college at Decorah, graduating in 1882, and from the commercial department of the Valparaiso University, Valparaiso, Ind., in 1883. Mr. Aaker then assumed charge of the commercial department of the Willmar Seminary, a new school started in 1883 at Wilmar, Minn., by Prof. A. M. Hove, later a teacher at Augsburg Seminary, Minnesota; Prof. H. S. Hilleboe, now principal of the schools at Benson, Minn., and Mr. Aaker. The seminary was one of the first schools of its kind in the Northwest, and grew in five years from twelve pupils to 250. In 1888 Mr. Aaker decided to engage in business and resigned his school position and in partnership with a brother opened a mercantile house in Twin Valley, where a profitable business was carried on. In 1891 the Northwestern Lutheran College Association was incorporated and a school styled Concordia College was started at Moorhead. The record made by Prof. Aaker at the Willmar Seminary was well known and the