公立常春藤这个概念第一次被提出是在理查德·莫尔(Richard Moll)1985年出版的《公立常春藤大学:美国最佳公立本科院校指南》(The PublicIvys: A Guide to America's Best Public Undergraduate Colleges and Universities)一书中列出了根据以下四个标准被评判为等同于常春藤盟校的15所公立大学:
College of William and Mary (Williamsburg, VA)
Miami University (Oxford, OH)
University of California system:
UC Berkeley
UC Davis
UC Irvine
UCLA
UC Riverside
UC San Diego
UC Santa Barbara
UC Santa Cruz
University of Michigan (Ann Arbor)
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
University of Texas at Austin
University of Vermont (Burlington)
University of Virginia (Charlottesville)
Binghamton University (New York)
Georgia Institute of Technology (Atlanta)
New College of Florida (Sarasota)
Pennsylvania State University (UniversityPark)
University of Colorado Boulder
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
University of Pittsburgh (Pennsylvania)
University of Washington (Seattle)
University of Wisconsin–Madison
除了Moll在1985 年创建的原始名单之外,还有更多的公立常春藤盟校名单,包括Howard和Matthew Greene的The Public Ivies (2001)中的几份名单。
在汇总了所有这些列表,并且收集了有关当今美国所有公立大学的选择性、学术质量、资源和声望的最新信息后,以下是一份26 所的公立常春藤盟校的名单,学校根据综合实力高低分成三个等级(Tier 1/2/3)~
Tier 1
UCLA
UC Berkeley
UNC Chapel Hill
University of Virginia
University of Michigan
UC Santa Barbara
Georgia Tech
Tier 2
UC Irvine
University of Florida
William and Mary
UC Davis
UC San Diego
UT Austin
University of Georgia
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
UW–Madison
Ohio State
University of Washington
Penn State
Tier 3
Purdue
Rutgers–New Brunswick
University of Maryland
University of Connecticut
Clemson University
Florida State
University of Minnesota Twin Cities