SUNY

See also Wikipedia's article about "SUNY".

The State University of New York (SUNY) is New York State's public higher education system. Because there are a billion SUNY schools and no SUNY budget, SUNY is basically a dilapidated, heaping train wreck of erstwhile colleges, universities, and other assorted ruins. Among its perverse features are a few rare professional schools, most of which are located on the outskirts of sunny Buffalo.

So do not confuse New York with one of those states with good public universities.

Occasionally, Columbia will be disparaged as "SUNY-Harlem". This almost came to be: Columbia was the state university of New York from 1784 to 1787. Of course, it wasn't the only Ivy League school to flirt with state ownership...some never learned when to quit.