^^Perhaps, but your example only reinforces my point: Fairbanks was booming in 1910 and the state established a land grant college there. But, the population shifted over time, and the state added a college in Anchorage, which is now twice the size of the initial campus in Fairbanks.
In contrast, while UMass-Boston is growing, it is still half the size of the “Berkshires flagship,” which years’ later is still financially inaccessible to the vast majority of the poor in the state (who live in the Boston environs). Besides hard to get to, making commuting impossible, rural college towns don’t have much in the way of opportunities for off-campus works, the point of this thread.
IMO, that is a choice/priority made by the state population.
Incidentally, the UCs were also land-grant colleges, and founded at the same time at UMass, but UC opened its first campuses in urban centers.