State University System (United States)
A state university system in the United States is a group of public universities supported by an individual state, or a similar entity such as the District of Columbia. These systems constitute the majority of public-funded universities in the country. Each state supports at least one such system.
Federal funded colleges and universities are limited to military personnel and government employees. Members of foreign militaries and governments also attend some schools. These schools include the United States military academies, Naval Postgraduate School, and military staff colleges.
A state university system normally means a single legal entity and administration, but may consist of several institutions, each with its own identity as a university. Some states—such as California and Texas—support more than one such system.
State universities get subsidies from their states. The amount of the subsidy varies from university to university and state to state, but the effect is to lower tuition costs below that of private universities. As more and more Americans attend college, and private tuition rates increase well beyond the rate of inflation, admission to state universities is becoming more and more competitive.
Read more about State University System (United States): History, State College System, Historic Names
Famous quotes containing the words state, university and/or system:
“A ship is a bit of terra firma cut off from the main; it is a state in itself; and the captain is its king.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)
“I am not willing to be drawn further into the toils. I cannot accede to the acceptance of gifts upon terms which take the educational policy of the university out of the hands of the Trustees and Faculty and permit it to be determined by those who give money.”
—Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924)
“Such is the remorseless progression of human society, shedding lives and souls as it goes on its way. It is an ocean into which men sink who have been cast out by the law and consigned, with help most cruelly withheld, to moral death. The sea is the pitiless social darkness into which the penal system casts those it has condemned, an unfathomable waste of misery. The human soul, lost in those depths, may become a corpse. Who shall revive it?”
—Victor Hugo (1802–1885)