I’m not sure if I understand what the distinction between a “University of " and the same state’s "___ State” (ex. University of Arizona and Arizona State). Is there some implication of quality, funding, status, etc. implied in this distinction?
In your specific example, I believe that the University of Arizona is a private university, and ASU is a state-funded school.
Here in San Diego, we have something similar. University of San Diego is private, but University of California at San Diego, San Diego State University and California State University San Marcos are all state schools. I think generally if the word “state” appears it means state-funded, but there are probably exceptions.
Also, just because the word “state” DOESN’T appear, doesn’t mean it’s private. I think that University of Michigan for example, is a public university, right?
In CA there is a two-tiered state university system. The UC system, University of California at <insert city name>, is the top tier system and the State University, California State University at <insert city name here>, is 2nd tier. There are a number of tiers below that, but they are (IIRC) mostly of the city college or community college type. The UC system is much more competitive to get into than the State system.
What Scout said. The University of Pennsylvania is a private school; the Pennsylvania State University (Penn State) is a land-grant school. PSU receives around 9% of its budget from State funds. (In the past, State support was greater.) I don’t know how much Penn gets, but I believe it’s pretty scanty.
Both UA and ASU are public. The Arizona Board of Regents controls both.
The University of Arizona is the land-grant institution of Arizona, hence publicly funded. Arizona State University is also publicly funded, but is not under the aegis of the Morrill Act. The land-grant status is quite often the distinction between the two systems. Aside from Arizona, some of these pair are:
University of Colorado - public, not land-grant
Colorado State - land-grant
University of Florida - land-grant
Florida State - public, not land-grant
University of Iowa - public, not land-grant
Iowa State - land-grant
University of Pennsylvania - private
Pennsylvania State - land-grant
University of Michigan - public, not land-grant
Michigan State - land-grant
Note that there isn’t any consistency in naming scheme. Some land-grant institutions are “University of …”, others are “… State”. Others have a completely different naming scheme; the land-grant institution of Texas, for example, is Texas A&M.
I should mention Cornell (see my location) as it’s a private university, but is also the land-grant institution of New York. We have what are called “statutory colleges” that receive public funding under the Morrill Act. New York State residents enrolled in these colleges have some significant tuition discounts.
I don’t think you can apply a rule to this. There are too many exceptions. The land-grant school in West Virginia is West Virginia University (my alma mater). West Virginia State University (formerly College) is a historically black institution. Both are public (state supported) universities.
ETA: What Terminus Est said.
Really?!
I’ve heard my profs make comments on several occasions about what “should be expected” from students at a university “of this caliber” and I thought they were just making stuff up. But UC schools are supposed to be the good schools?
Because their undergrads are idiots. 
[/broad brush]
-FrL-
So are some of the grad students
And yes, it is much more competitive.
There isn’t any one answer that you can apply across states with any accuracy. You just have to study each state individually to know how their system works for both the state schools and private schools. My home state of Louisiana has a two-tiered system just like California but the naming is completely different. LSU (Louisiana State University) is the flagship state university that is huge, gets tons of state funding for academic, research, and sports purposes. The other state schools are OK at various things but they have names all over the place and have to suck off of a teet that is a small fraction that LSU gets.
My current state of Massachusetts’ flagship school is simply called the University of Massachusetts. Florida has both the University of Florida and Florida state that are rivals and both pretty good schools and sports powerhouses.
In short, there is no rule. As mentioned earlier, the University of Pennsylvania is a private Ivy League school yet many people assume it is a Pennsylvania state school because of the name. Their flagship state university is simply Penn State.
If you want to get really confusing, Cornell us both a cut-throat Ivy League school and a public New York state institution. It varies by subject and types of degrees offered. Boston College and Boston University are both private schools.
ahem
And the University of Central Florida, which is the nation’s sixth-largest university by enrollment.
So. . . I should make UC Merced my 1st tier reach school, and Cal Poly my 2d tier safety?
Just thought I’d play with your broad brush. Did you go to Berkeley, or what?
Thanks for the correction on U of A, guys. I didn’t know that. (obviously!)
Well, in Oklahoma, the “State” university is the bastion of intelligence, athletics, and good looks, while the “University” down south is a place for lawn care and car detailing guys to spend time at before going back to the trailer park.
In all seriousness, OSU and OU were founded at the same time (along with a 3rd, but pretty much unknown school) before the territory became a state. OSU was known as Oklahoma A&M, with an emphasis on educating farmers and helping them out while the one down south was more generalist. OSU isn’t just and Ag/Mech school now, but there is a lot of that up here. And a whole lot fewer bandwagoning fans!
I went to Berkeley, and I think I can say pretty safely that at least Berkeley and UCLA (and probably Irvine and Davis) are considered better than all the Cal State schools.
Back when the idea of public higher education was getting organize, the idea was that there would be two tiers of post-secondary education. One would be for research and scholarship, and the other would be for practical training for teachers, engineers, farmers, etc. Obviously the school that focused on research and scholarship would be more academically prestigious.
The distinctions have blurred over the decades. In Missouri various schools around the state have focused on one or another particular field of study so that the University of Missouri-Columbia has the medical school, Missouri State University is supposed to be the preeminent place for public affairs, Truman State for liberal arts, etc.
This is pretty close to what I’d always heard. Basically, the University of ______ was the “academic” school and the _____ State University was more a vocational school. For example, here in Washington state:
Lest we forget my beloved old Rutgers, which refuses to become “New Jersey State University”, despite the occasional attempts by the state senate to force the issue.
The current compromise is the unwieldy “Rutgers, the State University of NJ”.
Heh, I went to UCSB, and I probably can’t say anything about its quality, only that I managed to graduate from it. I got my BS at UCD and I have to say, kids seemed to party a LOT harder at UCSB. I was under the impression that UC was the research university and CSU at one point in time did not give out PhD’s. Wikipedia seems to give a pretty good explanation of the difference:
As Shagnasty notes, it depends on the individual schools. Many of the “[Statename] State University” schools are Morrill Act land-grant institutions, but it’s by no means true everywhere. (Cornell and Rutgers are New York’s and New Jersey’s land-grant schools.)
One generalization that seems to be largely (but not universally) true is that if the state underwrites both a “University of [Statename]” and a “[Statename] State U.”, the former is apt to be the liberal-arts/professional institution while the latter is apt to be technical and research-oriented. But, as Oklahoma exemplifies, this is not always the cse.