Midstate College's origins date back to 1857, when a commercial school was started in Peoria.

[3] Over time, Mr. Brown increased his properties to 20 institutions, including Cairo, Decatur, Jacksonville and Rockford in Illinois; Davenport and Muscatine, Iowa; and St. Louis, Missouri.

In 1965, the Bunch family purchased the stock, and renamed the school to simply Midstate College in 1970.

[1] In 2018, Midstate College announced an upcoming Master of Business Administration program.

[5][needs update] In July 2019, Meredith Bunch announced that Midstate would close at the end of the 2019 summer semester and put the campus up for sale, after the college went through declining enrollment and a potential partnership with another educational institution fell through, leaving the college with a lack of funding.