<p>The University of Pennsylvania was named the University of Pennsylvania a century before the first “public” universities were created. Back then, any nonprofit institution was essentially public. What made Penn different was that it never sold its “naming rights” to the highest donor, unlike Harvard, Yale, Brown, Cornell, Stanford, Duke, Williams, and many others. And it never changed its name to something snootier-sounding, unlike The College of New Jersey (now Princeton, but still for less than half of its existence).</p>
<p>I don’t fully understand the process that occurred in the mid-19th Century, when some pre-existing universities seem to have become fully state-controlled (UVa), others more hybrids (Michigan, Cornell), and still others received oodles of public support while remaining almost totally private (Harvard, Yale). I’m sure there is an interesting reason why Penn DIDN’T become Penn State, but I don’t know it.</p>