One thing to know is that while most universities are either public or private, Pennsylvania has two universities that are a unique hybrid of those. They are Penn State and University of Pittsburgh, and it should be noted that Penn State has numerous campus throughout the state and a law school in Carlisle and medical school in Hershey. Pitt also has satellite campuses, but most are in the same region.
The public universities, or state schools, for the most part, all started as Normal Schools and originally they all became state colleges, with the exception of Indiana University of Pennsylvania being the only state university until the 1980s. Eventually, the state colleges were all upgraded to state university status. Recently with the economic crunch I’ve heard that some state universities are merging or maybe even disappearing. Some also had satellite campuses as well.
So, that’s the hybrid and public universities, which leaves the private colleges and universities, which there are many and some being very prominent, such as University of Pennsylvania and Bryn Mawr, which are part of the Ivies/Seven Sisters.
One of my favorite stories here is the fate of the renowned liberal arts college Beaver College. With the advent of online information and applications Beaver College ran into problems as educational Internet blocking software would not allow student access to their website from many schools because “beaver” was a euphemism that was on the list of blocked words that would activate the software. To get around this the university changed its name to Arcadia University!
Carnegie University of Pennsylvania definitely has not only a national reputation, but also international one and has great strength in technology, robotics, and gets a lot of attention for its acting and musical theater program since it produces so many prominent stars. And come to think of it gays ones, Matt Bomer, Zachary Quinto, Billy Porter, Cherry Jones, Rory O’Malley, Stephen Swartz, David Pevsner, Rob Marshall and honorary Gay Christina Crawford.
Haverford and Swarthmore will always have very high status as ultimate wet dream preppy schools, and nearby Villanova, which is like preppy Catholic central. Temple and Drexel remain prominent in Philadelphia and have amassed a lot of real estate and power in the city. Dickinson College is an idyllic little college established before the American Revolution and in the same town is the American War college, that while it isn’t West Point or Annapolis does give Pennsylvania a prominent military college. Pittsburgh is very much a college town dominated by Pitt and CMU, but also has Carlow, Drexel, Point Park and others usually with some strong core majors recognized nationally.
All in all I’ve always felt proud of Pennsylvania’s strength and legacy of college and university education and that it’s one of the biggest assets of the state and the graduates and programs have made innumerable impact on the world. We are exceptionally strong in the medical fields with hospitals aligned with Pitt, Penn State and University of Pennsylvania including two of the top children’s hospitals in the country, if not the world.
