Public Ivy

The Wren Building at the College of William and Mary

Sather Tower seen from Memorial Glade of the Berkeley campus of the University of California

Harrison Hall at Miami University

Michigan Union at the University of Michigan

Wilson Library at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

The Main Building at the University of Texas at Austin

Public Ivy is a term coined by Richard Moll in his 1985 book Public Ivies: A Guide to America's Best Public Undergraduate Colleges and Universities to refer to universities that are claimed to provide an Ivy League collegiate experience at a public school price. Public Ivies are considered, according to The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education, to be capable of "successfully competing with the Ivy League schools in academic rigor... attracting superstar faculty and in competing for the best and brightest students of all races."

Origins of the term

Moll, who earned his Master of Divinity degree from Yale University in 1959, was an admissions officer at Yale, and the director of admissions at Bowdoin College, University of California, Santa Cruz, and Vassar College. He traveled the nation examining higher education and in particular, identified eight public institutions (the same as the number of Ivy League members) which he thought had the look and feel of an Ivy League university. In addition to academic excellence, other factors considered by Moll include visual appearance, age, and school traditions as well as certain other Ivy League characteristics.

Original Public Ivies

The original Public Ivies as they were listed by Moll in 1985:

• College of William & Mary (Williamsburg, Virginia)
• Miami University (Oxford, Ohio)
• University of California (campuses as of 1985)
• University of Michigan (Ann Arbor)
• University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
• University of Texas at Austin
• University of Vermont (Burlington)
• University of Virginia (Charlottesville)

Worthy runners-up

Moll also offered in the same book "a list of worthy runners-up" and brief summaries of them:

• University of Colorado Boulder
• Georgia Institute of Technology
• University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
• New College of the University of South Florida (now New College of Florida)
• Pennsylvania State University at University Park
• University of Pittsburgh
• State University of New York at Binghamton (also called Binghamton University)
• University of Washington
• University of Wisconsin–Madison

Greenes' Guides

The more recent and expansive Greenes' list (including a list of approximately 30 schools) had one focus alone: public schools with academic quality comparable to an Ivy League institution.

The Public Ivies according to Greenes' Guides

A later book titled The Public Ivies: America's Flagship Public Universities (2001) by Howard and Matthew Greene of Greenes' Guides expanded upon the first list to include 30 colleges and universities. The table below is organized by region, and colleges are listed in alphabetical order.

Billings Memorial Library at the University of Vermont

The Rotunda at the University of Virginia

Northeastern

• Pennsylvania State University (University Park)
• Rutgers University (New Brunswick)
• State University of New York at Binghamton (also known as Binghamton University)
• University of Connecticut (Storrs)

Mid-Atlantic

• University of Delaware (Newark)
• University of Maryland (College Park)
• College of William & Mary (Williamsburg, Virginia)
• University of Virginia (Charlottesville)

Southern

• University of Florida (Gainesville)
• University of Georgia (Athens)
• University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
• The University of Texas at Austin

Western

• University of Arizona (Tucson)
• University of California, Berkeley
• University of California, Davis
• University of California, Irvine
• University of California, Los Angeles
• University of California, San Diego
• University of California, Santa Barbara
• University of California, Santa Cruz
• University of Colorado Boulder
• University of Washington (Seattle)

Great Lakes & Midwest

• Indiana University (Bloomington)
• Miami University (Oxford, Ohio)
• Michigan State University (East Lansing)
• The Ohio State University (Columbus)
• University of Illinois (Urbana-Champaign)
• University of Iowa (Iowa City)
• University of Michigan (Ann Arbor)
• University of Minnesota (Minneapolis–Saint Paul)
• University of Wisconsin (Madison)

Institutional comparisons

Academic comparisons and rankings

Several schools considered as "Public Ivies" are consistently ranked among the top schools in the multitude of surveys on American colleges and universities undertaken by U.S. News & World Report. For instance, half of the top 12 ranked national universities for undergraduate teaching in U.S. News & World Report are of the original Public Ivies listed by Moll. Public Ivies can be found in the top ten ranked graduate schools in business, education, engineering, law, and medicine.

Athletic comparisons

One sharp distinction between the Ivy League and some "Public Ivies" is their participation in intercollegiate athletics. One of the Ivy League's distinguishing characteristics is its prohibition on the awarding of athletic scholarships (athletes may only receive the same financial aid to which they would be entitled even if they did not play a sport). In contrast, many of the "Public Ivies" participate in major athletic conferences such as the Big Ten, Big 12, ACC, SEC, or Pac-12, and award athletic scholarships. These schools sometimes rely on profits, if any, from large-scale football and men's basketball programs to support the athletic department as a whole.

See also

• Black Ivy League
• Colonial colleges
• Flagship university
• Hidden Ivies: Thirty Colleges of Excellence
• Ivy League
• Little Three
• Little Ivies
• Seven Sisters
• Southern Ivies