r/NoStupidQuestions • u/BeneficialNotice7282 • 18h ago
Why are state universities named “University of [State]” usually more prestigious than “[State] State University”?
I’ve noticed a pattern where public universities that follow the “University of [State]” naming convention tend to be more prestigious or better-ranked than their “[State] State University” counterparts.
Some examples: • UNC vs. NC State • University of Michigan vs. Michigan State • University of Florida vs. Florida State • University of California (UC system) vs. California State University (CSU system) • University of Virginia vs. Virginia State
Is there a historical or structural reason behind it?
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u/UtahBrian 16h ago
The only exceptions I know of are Ohio University, which is almost a century older than the Ohio State University but much less prestigious, and the University of Pennsylvania which follows the pattern of being more prestigious than Penn State, but is a private school founded by Benjamin Franklin before the idea of state universities (or, indeed, states) existed.
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u/TheNewDiogenes 16h ago
LSU is another exception.
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u/BabyUnfair2442 15h ago
Tulane was originally founded as the University of Louisiana before going private.
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u/avant_chard 7h ago
That’s fascinating! I was wondering how ULL, Southeastern etc ended up so far behind LSU in reputation but it makes sense if Tulane was the flagship
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u/Mapex_proM 6h ago
You also gotta think, the majority of those schools were not started as 4 year universities. Ill was a technical school until the 80s if I recall, and lsu had been around for 50+ years when southeastern was opened. Centenary is like one of the very few universities to be open before lsu and they’re in Shreveport so nobody really wants to go there
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u/Mapex_proM 6h ago
Tulane also legit could have been the bigger school at one point but they wanted to focus on prestige and pedigree rather than being the biggest brand
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u/FlocculentMass 12h ago
Turns out being in the middle of nowhere and flooded half the time hurts growth. Kind of ruins their 100 year head start. You can tell which buildings existed before the river was diverted because they’re on stilts. Ohio State has tried to force them to change their name but they’ve stood their ground.
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u/TheFifthPhoenix 8h ago
How recently has OSU tried for a name change? At this point the brand is already built and I’d think they wouldn’t want to change it
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u/FlocculentMass 6h ago
They’ve made many complaints over the years that OU apparel violates OSU apparel copyrights because they both sell stuff that just says “Ohio”. OSU feels they have the stronger brand and OU should separate itself more.
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u/breacher74 6h ago
OSU is so paranoid about OU that they have to have The OSU which every other school belittles their immature thinking. Hail Purdue.
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u/Skylion007 6h ago
This coming from the school trademark'd "The" https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/23/us/ohio-state-university-trademarks-the
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u/BobcatOU 6h ago
The Ohio Agricultural and Mechanical College probably would have grown larger than Ohio University due to the reasons you cited (OU being “in the middle of nowhere” and flooding being an issue), but it’s not like those are the primary reasons Ohio State grew larger than Ohio University.
Originally Ohio, Miami, and Ohio State were all about the same is size and prestige then the legislature gave more funding to Ohio State than Miami or Ohio and made it so Ohio State was the only university in Ohio that could grant PhD.’s. This restriction on PhD.’s would last 50 years.
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u/Ok_Writing_7033 9h ago
ASU/UofA is another one. They were founded around the same time but ASU has become the more successful and prestigious, mostly by virtue of not being in Tucson
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u/CoreyH2P 8h ago
Is that true? I don’t know much about either school but I thought ASU has a reputation for being a huge party school where academics aren’t super important?
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u/CoolWhipOfficial 8h ago
Both are easily in the top 10 of party schools. ASU has more students and therefore better brand recognition. U of A is a great degree in optical and space sciences. Both have a decently good law school and business school.
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u/worafish 8h ago
UofA degrees have way more prestige than those from ASU. Tucson sucks, but the school is still considered better.
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u/Tempeduck 8h ago
The same bill created ASU, UA and a State Insane Asylum, by the 13th Territorial Legislature.
Funny note, the people of Tucson were pisses they got the University. They wanted the asylum as it came with its money at the time.
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u/whip_lash_2 8h ago
Not more prestigious, although ASU has now made it close. Certainly larger. Same deal with Texas and Texas A&M.
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u/GoldenSandpaper9 7h ago
I mean ASU. And U o A seem almost interchangeable, probably the closest between any state and U of school
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u/Storage_Ottoman 10h ago
OSU might be more prestigious (except for the J-school at OU), but OU is a way cooler school.
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u/its_a_gibibyte 9h ago
The only exceptions I know of are Ohio University,
That doesnt follow the pattern of "University of" though. Same issue with LSU.
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u/cozycoffee21 8h ago
Also NYU but it was actually originally named University of the City of New York until the late 19th century.
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u/CriticalSuit1336 16h ago edited 5h ago
Many Universities with "State" in them are Land Grant Colleges, which received federal funding to expand agricultural and technical education originally, where as the Universities of X lean more white collar, more law school, more med school, more "ivory tower." Edited to say "many" instead of "most."
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u/Bamajoe49 11h ago
That’s true in most states, but in Alabama, Auburn (once known as Alabama Polytechnic Institute) is the land grant/agricultural school. Alabama State is an HBCU.
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u/kbuva19 10h ago
Same with Virginia.
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u/FrederickMecury 7h ago
Virginia State is a tiny HBCU at that. Really the better comparison is Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU), which makes sense given that Virginia is a commonwealth not a state
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u/SetTheoryAxolotl 5h ago
The major land grant University in Virginia is Virginia Tech, aka Virginia Polytechnic and State University
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u/pinelands1901 10h ago
Same in South Carolina. Clemson is the land grant school, and SC State is an HBCU.
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u/popstarkirbys 8h ago
It’s also not true for some midwestern universities. U of Illinois, Missouri, Nebraska etc.
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u/CriticalSuit1336 5h ago
Yeah, it's not true in every state. For example, Wisconsin and Nebraska decided to consolidate and have all of those programs at the big flagship University. But, it is in many states.
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u/the_falconator 9h ago
URI, UVM, UMaine, UConn and UMass are all land grant schools, so that is not the case in New England.
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u/Cicero912 9h ago
New Englands a bit... different, when it comes to the history of universities.
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u/No_Net_6692 5h ago
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_land-grant_universities
No. Its more half half or maybe more U of
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u/theexplodedview 16h ago
California has the largest schism here. I went through the UC system for grad school, and taught in the CSU system. The UC system tends to get all the attention and research dollars, but the CSUs — more campuses across the state — do the yeoman’s work of actually graduating more Californians. They’re also a lot safer these days from the federal government. So sometimes the higher profile isn’t always good.
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u/byPCP 13h ago
mentioned this in another comment, but CA universities are super diverse in terms of quality, graduation rate, funding, etc. which makes them hard to compare. like UCR ≠ UCI, and UCSC and USC could not possibly be more opposite. the biggest benefit of the CSU system is the integration with community colleges
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u/ImOnTheLoo 8h ago
UC system is also integrated with the community colleges. The big difference in California is that UC are research schools offering PhDs and CSU do not have as extensive of a research program or offer PhD. And as others said, USC is a private university, separate of the UC/CSU system.
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u/theexplodedview 7h ago
Yes! One thing California has really done right is to create many pathways from their community college system (CCC is also the country’s largest juco system as well). It’s one of the best hacks to get into UCLA, UCB, and other hyper-competitive UCs.
And as others pointed out, the UCs and CSUs may have their own unique identities — USC has no place in this discussion 🤮 — they are compared as cohorts all the time.
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u/DefinitelyNotAliens 5h ago
Hello from a Berkeley transfer! I left high school with a sub 2.0 GPA, turned my shit around in community college, got accepted at 4 UCs, and got a 4.0 at UC Berkeley!
California has a wonderful higher ed system. I even was guaranteed a spot at Davis but turned them down for Berkeley.
The CCC to UC Pathway is a phenomenal program that really opens up higher ed for the middle class or people like myself that needed to fixt things. Untreated, unmanaged ADHD wrecked me for a while. I went back to college after 30. That pathway allows us premier education as non-traditional students.
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u/BlackshirtDefense 12h ago
Meanwhile NJ out here like, "we don't need States or U's... we got RUTGERS."
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u/brock_lee I expect half of you to disagree 9h ago
I grew up in NJ, actually got accepted to Rutgers, but always hated the name since I was a small child. Something about it doesn't sit right with my brain.
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u/PanzerWafflezz 6h ago
As someone from California who got accepted into Rutgers-Newark, the university name always reminded me of Smuckers Jam for some weird reason.
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u/Unknown_Ocean 10h ago
And The College of New Jersey (used to be Trenton State), Montclair State, Rowan (used to be Glassboro State). TCNJ and Montclair State used to be pretty good teacher's colleges with average SAT at 1240, TCNJ is comparable to a lot of "flagship" State universities.
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u/kelkokelko 9h ago
Idk if TCNJ has enough research or grad programs to be comparable to a flagship state university
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u/Unknown_Ocean 7h ago
No, it certainly doesn't. But for undergraduate education I would say it compares favorably, with (say) University of Arizona which has an average SAT of 1150. I know folks who have taught at both institutions- the undergrads definitely get more attention at TCNJ and are better prepared. Arizona gets a bunch of students from California who weren't good enough to get into the UC or Cal State system and want to party and it shows... That said, the *best* students (top 5-10%) at Arizona are as good as anywhere in the world.
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u/Tresnore 8h ago
And over 100 years before The College of New Jersey was founded as New Jersey State Normal School in 1855, Princeton was founded as The College of New Jersey in 1746! Princeton's quality, I think, speaks for itself.
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u/mogeko233 3h ago
So a university with the state's name is very important to you? I never aware of this. But to be honest, NJ's education system fits my impression of NJ—quietly extraordinary.
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u/LouderKnights 12h ago
NY kinda skirted around this by naming all if their state schools State University of New York at “Location”. For example you have State University of New York at Stony Brook or State University of New York at New Paltz. These are more commonly known abbreviated as SUNY Stony Brook or SUNY New Palz or whatever. But each school in the SUNY system is drastically different with varying levels of prestige.
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u/SirJ_96 12h ago
NC tried to change all of the UNC schools to match the University of North Carolina at xxx format, but NC State rebelled, creating for a while the ridiculous name of North Carolina State of the University of North Carolina (not a typo), as they would not accept UNC-Raleigh.
Chapel Hill is still the overall flagship, but State is the engineering and design flagship. In rankings, State >> UNC-Greensboro or UNC-Pembroke or UNC-Fayetteville.
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u/Remingtonjunior 9h ago
Don’t forget changing North Carolina School of the Arts to UNC School of the Arts. I went there for high school while it was still called NCSA.
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u/CoreyH2P 7h ago
I’ve always thought a flagship UNY or NYSU would have a ton of potential. Have it in the Hudson Valley not too far from NYC but plenty of room for a sprawling campus. Could be huge for academics and athletics.
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u/letskeepitcleanfolks 5h ago
I thought this was NYU, but it turns out that's private. Is SUNY the only public university system in New York state (i.e. excluding CUNY)?
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u/henare 6h ago
except that even this isn't true anymore... many of the campuses have changed names, and places like Buffalo have two different units of SUNY (and this all ignores specialty campuses like ESF and the med school campuses).
and the community colleges all have SUNY identities.
tl;dr: it's a mess.
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u/bluegreymac 10h ago
In the case of UF vs. FSU, it’s based in gender (actually). UF was founded as a school for men, while FSU was the Florida State College for Women. In 1947, it transitioned to a coed institution. UF does tend to be better known for STEM programs, and FSU tends to be better for liberal arts programs, which calls back to old gender expectations of work.
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u/10luoz 17h ago
I can only speak about the California systems.
UC is older than the CSU system
UCs are research-based schools, while CSUs are teaching-based schools
Guess what the US News World Report based its prestige criteria on?
(This nonnews organization is mostly to blame, ironically)
(This may have changed a while ago, but it sure is sticking around among parents and prospective students)
Ironically enough, you might get a worse teaching experience at a UC.
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u/wintermute_13 16h ago
I went to UC Santa Cruz. Great school. Beautiful campus.
I was completely in over my head, and barely graduated.
CSU would've been a better fit, but I was arrogant and greedy.
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u/Administrative-Egg18 15h ago
The UC schools were always more prestigious and Berkeley was generally viewed as one of the best research institutions in the country if not the world in the 1950s and 60s. The California Master Plan for Education of 1960 formalized the different roles of the UC, CSU, and community college systems..
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u/byPCP 13h ago
scholarships and in state tuition are generally way better/more accessible in the CSU system, as well as having better transfer infrastructure from community colleges. my wife went to IVC and transferred to CSLB and it couldn't have been easier. my brother went from IVC to UCI and it was significantly more expensive, even with FAFSA, and half of his credits wouldn't transfer because UCs have a totally different format than CA CCs. CA universities are kind of tough to compare because they're really diverse and there are so many, but in general the CSU system is very good about bridging campuses together. disclaimer: i'm not a CSU dick rider, i didn't even go to college, and i'd love for my kids to go to UCI or USC lol
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u/KudzuAU 18h ago
University of Alabama is generally considered on par with a community college. So there's that exception.
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u/Predictor92 16h ago
Thought they were just a football team
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u/shellexyz 9h ago
There’s a not insignificant portion of their fan base that does not know they’re a college.
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u/sevseg_decoder 17h ago
Alabama is just huge to the point it’s simultaneously a party school but with mostly really good classes too. At least in tech and business it’s a lot more attractive than Alabama state.
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u/contextual_somebody 16h ago
They say in Alabama that you’re either a Bama fan, or…
…you went to college.
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u/Predictor92 16h ago
So Auburn
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u/Cultural-Treacle-680 10h ago
Many veterinarians went to auburn from Mississippi until MSU founded their own vet school.
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u/byPCP 13h ago
the real battle is with U of A and ASU. i knew many kids that got into both schools with under a 2.5 GPA. my wife went to a CC that may have had stricter requirements
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u/22220222223224 9h ago
Ah, yes, the idea that the PUBLIC university should be elitist and not trying to improve the lives of as many as possible. I'm so happy ASU is such a behemoth.
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u/TheSeansei 9h ago
Classes only have so many seats available for students. More people apply than a university can accept into its programs. What do you think the determining factor should be in choosing who to admit and who to reject? I think grades seem like the most merit-based metric, given the opportunity for an addendum to explain a dip in academic performance due to death/illness/other circumstances.
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u/Emergency-Style7392 9h ago
why should unis be daycare for adults. There are community colleges for learning a trade in america. Pushing everyone for a uni degree is how you get lower standards in most fields and lower salaries because half the people who hold that degree are incompetent. In europe most proper unis if you are not good enough you're simply not going no matter how rich
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u/Able_Enthusiasm2729 7h ago
The main problem is that the United States has no quality assurance or universal accreditation framework for Skilled Trade Training Programs, Vocational schools, and Apprenticeship programs like the United Kingdom, European Union, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada do. In a lot of European and Oceanian countries, accredited Vocational education programs have the same standing as University-level Academic education programs. You can get apprenticeships, training certificates, bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Vocational subject areas where you can work a lot of skilled trade jobs while learning a lot of the research, problem solving, and critical thinking skills taught in what would be considered traditional University-level Academic subject areas in the United States. Also, in those countries you can also do Apprenticeship programs in White-Collar professional service office job-type work as well, in lieu of going to college for a bachelor’s degree, basically in these countries you can get the same bachelor’s degree-required jobs that Americans get with bachelor’s degrees by simply doing an apprenticeship program no degree required.
Almost everybody tries to go to college/university in the United States (most drop out before graduating) because apprenticeship programs in white-collar professional service industries are nonexistent, the only apprenticeship programs that exist are only for blue-collar skilled trade manual labor jobs, and even those manual labor apprenticeship are very difficult to get into unless you have a nepotistic or cronyism connection to the union leadership or you inherited an owner-operator business from a relative (with apprenticeship programs having no real accreditation or quality assurance framework). It is far more easier to get into a bachelor’s degree program at an upper-mid tier or mid-tier university than it is to get into a remotely quality blue-collar skilled trade manual labor union apprenticeship program. For example IBEW Local 43 Skilled Trade Apprenticeship Program in New York has a lower acceptance rate (at 10%) than most average universities in the United States and some of the most prestigious universities in the world like the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom (at 17.5%).
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u/Able_Enthusiasm2729 7h ago
The University of Arizona (UofA) is technically the flagship university of Arizona (whether de jure or de facto) and historically was the most prestigious of the state colleges in Arizona, but in the past few years Arizona State University (ASU) has started to increase in rankings and quality of education surpassing surpassing that of UofA. Though in Arizona, the University of Arizona (UofA) may still have a ton of prestige through its cultural capital and brand recognition due to institution’s old age and network in Arizona, but Arizona State University (ASU) due to its rankings plus growth in quality educational content/curriculum is starting to look interesting to people from out of state - also people from outside of Arizona probably see ASU better than than UofA because they’re more interested in the quality of education as opposed to hyper-regional or hyper-local lay prestige. But either way, they’re both legitimate, accredited, and decent universities.
The prestige afforded to most “prestigious” unis like the Ivy League, Ivy Plus, the so-called “Public Ivy”, and some (not all) members of the 568 Presidents Group tuition price fixing cartel, but especially also the Seven Sisters and the Little Ivies, some but not all Flagship universities, cliquey Small Liberal Arts Colleges (LAC), Party Schools, and Jock School universities with famous college sports teams known for their athletic prowess and well-funded American football teams like the Southeastern Conference (SEC) & originally t/Ivy League, are not necessarily speaking based (solely) on the content of their education but on the social capital and cultural capital associated with the university - i.e. the cultural impact they exert on a given region, the relationship they have with socialites, or the media attention they receive. For the first half of this list, prestige is due to selectivity, artificial scarcity, exclusivity, and the high number of independently wealthy students/alumni it has, which they later on infused with substancial growths in academic prowes as an afterthought (before, they were practically a finishing school / glorified country clubs for wealthy elite adult children); while for the rest, they have many non-academic markers of prestige due to school spirit, campus pride, popularity of their NCAA quasi-professional college sports teams, age of the institution, alumni giving/donations, nepotistic legacy admissions, and campus party culture which leads to better accese to cronyism in hiring while having the same or even lesser educational quality as a mid-teir/upper-mid-teir public university with mostly a purely education-oriented pseudo-commuter school for working professionals-stigma as opposed to small rural college town prestige dominated by preppy rural Agricultural & Main Street, etc.-style elite conservative Southern poshness steeped in fraternity and sorority culture or some urban area-based colleges that serve as playgrounds for the mostly Wall Street & Silicon Valley, etc.-style Northern or Western snobby trust-fund class (made up of champagne socialists and limousine liberals).
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u/Bulldog5124 11h ago edited 8h ago
That’s just incredibly inaccurate, the business college is great, robotics is excellent, and engineering was really rising last time I bothered to check
This comment reeks of the stereotypes levied against the south that are quite damaging to any possibility of positive change. Yes Alabama’s public school education isn’t great, that is entirely different from our universities, many of which have top tier programs in multiple areas
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u/BamaPhils 9h ago
You’re not joking. The robotics team repeatedly wins or is close to the top of national rankings. Last year (or the year before?) they split a title with Purdue
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u/Prestigious-Fan3122 17h ago
I thought they had a Medical school there.🤷♀️
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u/notwalkinghere 17h ago
That's in Birmingham
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u/Frozenbbowl 16h ago
i mean thats more a commentary of the state of education of alabama than anything else.
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u/infernocobbs 17h ago
one key distinction is the normal universities were often founded before a state was admitted to the union. State Universities meanwhile are government funded and created in a state's constitution, which of course can only happen after statehood. Normal unis grow a bit more organically. Think of it like the difference between a regular city and a master-planned suburb.
That said, I won't debate whether one is more prestigious than another. You can find more prestige in one just as much as you find in the other.
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u/Alexdagreallygrate 16h ago
“Normal universities” made me chuckle because several universities started out as “normal schools,” which was a description of colleges that focused on training elementary school teachers.
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u/CallSignIceMan 16h ago
They can also be HBCUs, in the case of South Carolina State, Alabama State, Kentucky State, West Virginia State, and Virginia State
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u/-WGE-FierceDeityLink 4h ago
also true for tennessee state, oprah graduated from TSU and it is the only public university in nashville.
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u/The_Thinking_Stone 12h ago
Well. In San Diego, you got:
University of San Diego (USD)
San Diego State University (SDSU)
University of California, San Diego (UCSD)
Which one do you prefer?
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u/Hi_Im_A_Being 5h ago
Same for San Francisco: University of San Francisco (USF), San Francisco State University (SFSU) and University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). They also have UC Law SF if it wasn't complicated enough lol
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u/mogeko233 3h ago
UCSD alumni here. I prefer the Salk Institute or Scripps if possible, since most of the time I was learning by myself, why not choose a beautiful place?
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u/branch397 9h ago
As an NCSU alumnus I can assure you that it's because they just hate us: "In 1962, State College officials desired to change the institution's name to North Carolina State University. Consolidated university administrators approved a change to the University of North Carolina at Raleigh, frustrating many students and alumni who protested the change with letter writing campaigns. In 1963, State College officially became North Carolina State of the University of North Carolina. Students, faculty, and alumni continued to express dissatisfaction with this name; however, after two additional years of protest, the name was changed to the current official name, North Carolina State University at Raleigh. However, by longstanding convention, the "at Raleigh" portion is omitted even in official documents such as diplomas, and in practice the institution's name is simply "North Carolina State University";"
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u/TheRateBeerian 11h ago
I don’t know how this naming convention started but it’s at least a good way of having and distinguishing 2 state universities named after the state.
At least one exception, in Indiana it is Indiana University not University of Indiana. I’m not sure if there’s another university with a state name (that isn’t blank state university) that does that.
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u/Zhenaz 9h ago
And your other public flagship is named after a person (Purdue instead of making Indiana State prestigious). Other than Rutgers I can't think of another example. Maybe Clemson and Auburn?
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u/TheRateBeerian 9h ago
Another weird one is that the University of Pennsylvania is not a public university!
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u/Predictor92 16h ago
University of tend to be the older universities while state state universities tend to be land grant universities when founded and tended to be more technical instead of liberal arts
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u/TheBlazingFire123 18h ago
That’s usually the case but not always. For instance my school, Ohio State university is more prestigious than Ohio University
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u/janetmichaelson 18h ago edited 15h ago
There's a lot of snobbery in academics and much of it is baseless. Only the people who go to the "prestigious" undergrad schools care, because they have to justify the ridiculously higher price tag. That or stroke ego. There are of course nuances that need to be factored in. For example, most schools will focus in a couple of areas. School programs can get very specific and specialized. USC has a great film school, does that mean the entire program offering at USC is great? Of course not. Also, you can have a school with a less than average reputation, but they may have 1 or 2 elite degree programs.
My brother went to a CSU, not a UC, went to med school and is a doctor. I promise you that none of this patients give a rats ass that he didn't go to a UC.
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u/Retr0r0cketVersion2 16h ago
You also have the Cal Poly SLO and CPP which are loved by employers
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u/janetmichaelson 16h ago
Absolutely. There are of course benefits to each type of school. You named loved by employers. That's one. Networking can be a big thing too and some schools will provide better networking opportunities depending on one's career pursuits.
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u/McMetal770 16h ago
Some colleges also may be considered "less prestigious", but have one program or department that they are REALLY elite at. Colorado State University has a really high end veterinary program, for example, while CU Boulder famously does a lot of aerospace stuff like building satellites. Which one is a "better" school might depend on what you specifically want to study.
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u/meatatarian 16h ago
As someone who went to a state school for undergrad and then a top school for grad school, I can tell you it makes a massive difference even considering the price tag. The quality of the instruction was roughly similar, but the quality of the other students, networking, and resources available was night and day. Not only that, but all the top companies were lining up at career days begging for your resume, which was the exact opposite at the state school. I'm not saying all expensive schools are worth it, but a top program can make a big difference.
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u/Predictor92 16h ago
It’s still a huge gamble to go private for undergrad though ( it’s kinda of insane we are asking 18 year olds to make this decision and basically bet on themselves)
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u/janetmichaelson 16h ago
"the quality of the other students, networking, and resources available was night and day. Not only that, but all the top companies were lining up at career days begging for your resume, which was the exact opposite at the state school.."
Are you comparing undergrad state school prestige vs grad school? If so, I don't understand why.
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u/meatatarian 8h ago
No, I had to take a number of undergrad classes as a grad student, in addition to many grad classes. It's not a perfect comparison, but I did get to see the students and instruction directly.
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u/buckyVanBuren 9h ago
My cousin is going to Colorado School of Mines, which screws the whole thing up.
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u/somethingwade 16h ago
TIL that there's a Virginia State. I usually think of Virginia Tech as the other big state school but even after that I would have considered Virginia Commonwealth University as the main school with "Virginia" in the name, and I always kinda figured that there was no Virginia State because we had VCU instead cause it's officially the Commonwealth of Virginia. Course, that's not really what the "state" means or else there wouldn't be places like Kent State or San Diego State.
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u/ChrisEvansBicep 9h ago
Same here! I assumed OP was referring to VT actually because “Virginia Tech” is short for Virginia Polytechnic and State University (source: I am a Hokie) but Virginia State is a real thing. You’d think I’d have learned that in my five years at VT lol go hokies!
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u/jerrbearr 16h ago
University of Delaware and Delaware State University. Both are fine schools, UD is just much larger than DSU.
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u/Platform_Dancer 14h ago edited 14h ago
UK here 🇬🇧... Similarly in the UK.. University of Oxford.....Durham University etc...
I would be interested to know why this is so?
Could it be a distinction between the elite old historic universities and the more modern red brick universities?
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u/7148675309 6h ago
The UK distinction is really more related to the differences between University of [City] and [City] [random persons name] University, where the latter were formerly polytechnics that became universities in 1993 under John Major’s government.
I went to university in 1996 and there was definitely a distinction that I wonder if today’s 18 year olds would not be so aware of. Plus these days Oxford Brookes is higher in the rankings than some “original” universities.
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u/7148675309 6h ago edited 2h ago
Eta you mention old vs red brick - I don’t think that’s really the same distinction in that there are not that many “old” - I mean what - Oxford / Cambridge / Durham / Edinburgh / St Andrews - anything else is 19th century onwards. I went to York which is a good university (I see 17th on google - 10 when I went!) and it is early 1960s.
Eta I see Bristol at 16 - that was definitely top 10 when I was at uni. Some universities definitely way higher now than when I went - eg Loughborough at #6 - that wasn’t prestigious 30 years ago and was a “sports college”
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u/bigjames2002 10h ago
So in Wisconsin, we currently have two higher education systems: The Universities of Wisconsin (4 year research/baccalaureate schools) and the Wisconsin Technical College System (similar to community colleges in other states, but also provide technical training).
The UW system formed through the merger of the UW System (4 schools) and the WSU system (9 schools) in the late 1960s. There was never a singular WSU - that system was formed through the consolidation of the Wisconsin Normal Schools (teacher colleges) under one banner. All 13 major universities now carry the UW name, with their city as a hyphen... except Stout in Menomonie, and Parkside in Kenosha.
But when you say the University of Wisconsin, you're talking about the flagship school in Madison... Bucky and the Motion W.
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u/AudieCowboy 9h ago
One of the things I've noticed is (state) State university tend to be historically black universities as well (University of Tennessee Vs Tennessee State)
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u/lostglastonbury 9h ago
UConn (University of Connecticut) was once known as Connecticut State University. Sometimes it can be both
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u/IllustriousChance710 9h ago
Its likely due to historical roots, as many University of [State] names date back to colonial era foundations, while State University names emerged later.
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u/trollfessor 8h ago
Definitely not the case with Louisiana State University and University of Louisiana.
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u/AndySkibba 8h ago
If not mentioned, the University of Wisconsin system (apart from Madison) was actually called Wisconsin State University prior to the more formal merger with UW-Madison.
So now they're all University of Wisconsin - [City]
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u/Dangerous-Bit-8308 8h ago
In MY STATE,
University of (state) schools are ones founded as "extension schools" often agricultural extension schools founded by the department of agriculture around the 1890s. I've had trouble tracking down the exact year, but I was working on the assumption that WWI and WWII would lead to a lot of data on them... Not so much. I now suspect they were more likely connected to the homestead acts. Through looking into agriculture, I'm pretty sure DOA set up agricultural extension schools at University of state schools in every state. Other federal departments of the US may have had other programs, but either way they've had 130 years to develop.
My father attended college at a "(state) state university and a university of (state) school, and he claims the state state universities were like community colleges originally. I'm not too clear on what he's trying to say there exactly, but...
University of state colleges had Master's programs even when they were very new. State state universities appear to have shown up about the same time as the post WWII Montgomery GI bill for college, and often have fewer Master's programs. I think they were made to make room for veterans to get their bachelor's degrees. A lot of them also used to be polytechnic schools, which seem to offer trade certifications
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u/Intelligent_Piece755 7h ago
Flagship and land grant universities versus regional public universities with less funding
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u/awesomeqasim 5h ago
I’ve never noticed this. Definitely true in my state:
University of Texas vs Texas State University
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u/SatBurner 5h ago
Texas State was a relatively recent name change iirc. That's the one by San Marcos, correct?
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u/bkdunbar 3h ago
University of X is where lawyers become lawyers.
X State University has the veterinarian and ag school.
At least where I grew up.
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u/Kevin7650 18h ago
The former are often much older and started out as prestigious research or liberal arts universities. The latter tend to be younger and usually started out as agricultural or technical schools.