Cornell University Named #1 Public School In Survey
US News and World Report shocked some people when it listed its No. 1 public university this year. At the top of the list of familiar names like UC Berkeley and University of Michigan is Cornell University. Wait, isn’t Cornell — one of the famed eight Ivy League schools — as private as private gets? Well yes and no.
Cornell is unique among elite universities in that it operates as both a public and private university. Cornell contains many individual colleges within its university system, and some of these get funding from New York State. That means parts of Cornell operate essentially as yet another SUNY school, not unlike SUNY Albany. Besides heading up the public university list for US News, Cornell ranked No. 15 on the overall national universities list. Cornell was founded in 1865. Its main campus is in Ithaca, New York. The Cornell Ithaca campus alone has 18 libraries, some of which are virtual.
