Basics of Public Universities

In the United States, most public universities are state universities founded and operated by state government entities; the oldest being Rutgers University, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and The University of Georgia, although the overall oldest school now designated as public is The College of William & Mary (founded in 1693 and first considered private). The University of South Carolina (1801) is the longest continuously supported public university. Every U.S. state has at least one public university to its name and the largest states have more than thirty. This is partly as a result of the 1862 Morrill Land-Grant Acts, which gave each eligible state 30,000 acres (120 km²) of federal land to sell to finance public institutions offering courses of study in practical fields in addition to the liberal arts. With the help of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the High Education Act of 1965 and the Education Amendments of 1972, public universities became even more accessible for women, minorities and lower income applicants. Several examples of state-funded universities considered to be top-tier on a worldwide basis can be found in the University of California system. Their top institutions include Davis, San Diego, Santa Barbara, Los Angeles (UCLA), and Berkeley. Many U.S. public universities began as teacher training institutions and eventually were expanded into comprehensive universities. Examples include UCLA, formerly the southern branch of California State Normal School; Arizona State University, originally the Tempe Normal School; the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, formerly Milwaukee Normal School; and Missouri State University, formerly Southwest Missouri State Teachers College.

States generally charge higher tuition to out-of-state students. The higher fees are based on the theory that students from the state, or much more often their parents, have contributed to subsidizing the university by paying state taxes, while out-of-state students and their parents have not.

It has never been determined whether the U.S. Constitution would allow the federal government to establish a federal university system; the only federally chartered public universities that currently exist are the United States Service academies and military-associated educational institutions administered by the United States Department of Defense. In addition, Georgetown University was the first federally chartered private university in Washington, D.C. (1815), and was later followed by other colleges and universities in the District of Columbia, including Gallaudet University (1864), Howard University (1867), and American University (1893).

Historically, many of the prestigious universities in the United States have been private. Some public universities are also highly prestigious and increasingly selective though; Richard Moll designated such prestigious public universities Public Ivies. At schools like the University of Michigan, UCLA, the University of California, Berkeley, the University of Texas at Austin, the University of Virginia, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the College of William and Mary, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, a vast majority of the departments are consistently highly ranked.

Public universities generally rely on subsidies from their respective state government. “The historical data for private and public institutions reveal that public institutions have always been more dependent on external support than have private institutions.” Recently, state support of public universities has been declining, forcing many public universities to seek private support. The real level of state funding for public higher education has doubled from $30 billion in 1974 to nearly $60 billion in 2000. Meanwhile, the percent of state appropriations for the cost of schooling per student at public university has fallen from 78% in 1974 to 43% in 2000. The increasing use of teaching assistants in public universities is a testament to waning state support. To compensate, some professional graduate programs in law, business, and medicine rely almost solely on private funding.