The University of Southern California doesn’t mind USC or SC, but, for unknown reasons, flips out when you say “Southern Cal.”
I would also agree with Airblairxxx about the University of California. I earned degrees at UCLA and Berkeley and both are labelled as coming from “The University of California”.
Then sometimes things go the other way. The University I got my Master’s degree at used to be named “The American University”, and recently changed its name to “American University”.
DISCLAIMER: I am a graduate of Ohio University. Therefore, my comments are biased.
Why “THE” Ohio State University?
I’m going to start telling people I was graduated from The Ohio University. That ought to muck things up a bit.
Just got back from my eye doctor’s office and noticed his diploma reads “The Ohio State University”. Which leads me to believe “The” is part of the legal/official name.
For those of you who don’t think this is just pretentention, I urge you to watch Monday Night Football tonight. At least watch the first quarter. At some point in the game they will show tape of all the starters introducing tehmselves, stating their position, and naming there college.
Should Robert Holcombe happen to start for the Rams (there is no chance of this), he would say something like, “Robert Holcombe, Running Back, Illinois.” The name of his college is officially “The University of Illinois”, but there is no way he say that whole thing.
Now pay attention to what Orlando Pace says (and possibly Ryan Pickett may start). Pace will most likely say, “Orlando Pace, Left Tackle, THE Ohio State University.” It is unmistakably a put-down, but I’m not exactly sure who is being put down.
Please make an effort to observe this behavior, before posting theories about grammar and official name and whatnot. At some point in the past athletes from OSU would say they were from OSU. Now they say THE Ohio State University. I think the OP would like to know why and when this happened.
I’m an Ohio University alumnus so I know a bit about this situation. Ohio students and alumni have always hated the fact that Ohio State likes to think of themselves as “Ohio’s school” somehow just because they’re good at football- on a side note, it’s amazing how supportive OSU fans are of Ohio as they are always saying “go Ohio” and the band even spells out our school name before every football game. Ohio was the first university in Ohio (and in fact the entire Northwest territory-and public nonetheless) and was traditionally a much better school academically( this has changed a bit in the last ten to fifteen years when OSU decided to start caring about academics- they had open enrollment until about 15 years ago). So, because of this Ohio students took to calling Ohio University, “Ohio…The State University”. This prompted OSU fans to refer to their school as “THE Ohio State University” emphasizing the THE. I’d like to also remind any OSU fans out there reading that while Ohio University was founded as Ohio University in 1804 as the first university in Ohio (public nonetheless), OSU was founded as Ohio Agricultural and Mechanical College seventy years later as the ninth university in Ohio.
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Perhaps they refer to it as “The Ohio State University” so people won’t think they’re referring to Oklahoma State University. Same thing with “Ohio University” instead of OU.
I am aware of the zombieness here. Aggies refer to it as t.u. no caps.
I think this might be the reason, actually. Cleveland State University (for instance) is an Ohio state university, as is Kent State University, or Bowling Green State University, etc. But they’re not the Ohio State University.
I don’t know how this is handled in other states with multiple state universities.
New York has its SUNY system. There are sixty-four different campuses spread out through the state. A person would say, for example, they went to Plattsburgh or SUNY Plattsburgh (pronounced soony) rather than the State University of New York.
There is a New York University but it’s a private school.
Yes, but SUNY is a single university with multiple campuses. NY doesn’t have two separate state universities- but California has both the University of California and California State University. Here are a couple of quotes from the latter’s website.
I have never seen “the” used before SUNY ( or CUNY , for that matter) in a similar context. One would say " The State University of New York has sixty-four campuses" , but never " The SUNY has sixty-four campuses".
But those quotes above are from an official website . It might be style ( like having “the flu” vs having “malaria”) or it might be “we’re the state university, you’re only a state university” that leads to " The Ohio State University" being used in contexts where “OSU” would make sense. I’m guessing it’s not a style issue.
I think it’s absurd that the University of Kansas is abbreviated “KU”. A friend teaches there, and no one’s had a good explanation. There is no Kansas University, though sometimes we call KU “Kansas U.”, but none of his colleagues smile.
See also: Post #23.
Oh, and go Cats. 
I believe Ohio State is the only land grant college in Ohio. Certainly Ohio is not, with a big clue being that it was founded in 1804 (with Miami right after them (and they have a naming feud of their own)). Land grant colleges were initially founded in the Civil War era.
Disclaimer, I am a graduate of Ohio State. When I was there (in the 20th century) the only time people used “The” was ironically. Mostly as thumbing our noses at the university administration. Note that the “The” is an official part of the name. Using it is not arrogant, it’s pedantic (or ironic 
).
Something else I’ve heard but can’t verify: Originally, OSU was open enrollment. That is, if you met the requirements, you could enroll. The university could not refuse you. Thus the cancerous growth of the main campus and then auxiliary campuses (they didn’t have to place you on main campus).
To fix the problems of open enrollment, OSU wanted to merge all the state universities into one big system (a la University of California). As you can expect, the other schools were very much against this, and they got enough political support to stop the plan. As a sop, OSU got to end open enrollment and add a “The” to their official name.
I look up on the wall of my office to see my law school diploma and see that it says “The University of Iowa.” So Ohio State is not unique in the use of the singular article.
That said, in my childhood when my fondest hope was to go down to Columbus and play football for the Buckeyes (a hope crushed when the word got out that the boys at the Horseshoe weren’t even going to talk to any interior line people who weighted less that 225 lbs. their senior year of high school) I can’t think of anyone, including my father (Kenyon-BS,'27, Western Reserve-MD,30), who called the factory at Columbus anything other than Ohio State, without the “The.”
Got a huge zombie shock when I saw a reference to Orlando Pace starting for the Rams on Monday Night Football “tonight”.
The regional campuses actually still have open enrollment. I think that was one of the conditions for ending it at the main campus.
Are there any other states which have a school called “<state name> State University”, and which also have other schools in their system called “<other name> State University”?
Georgia has a Georgia State University and also a Valdosta State University down in the far-southern town of Valdosta.