Only one main difference really

– In a public University, part of your tuition and fees is paid for by the state

– In a public uniiversity, you pay all the tuition and fees

There is a misconception that Private Universities are better, but over the last 50 years, there has been a closing of the gap between public and private universities and many public Universities are now very highly regarded academically such as the University of California-Berkeley and the University of Michigan.

Private schools are more dependent upon tuition for their survival than are public schools. While that doesn’t HAVE to make a huge difference, in many cases, it does mean that private schools are more eager to appeal to students and their families, since if they don’t, they go out of existence. While there are now (and have been for decades) some really good public schools at the top end, those at the bottom end can be dismal – I’ve been to places where they admitted that the buildings were unsafe, but they couldn’t get the legislature to approve construction, and places where they were swamped with far too many students to fit into the classes they had available, but were not authorized to hire the additional faculty that they needed, again by the legislature. That couldn’t happen at a private school because more students means more tuition, so they could, and almost certainly would, hire more faculty.

This isn’t really the right question to ask. There are really good public universities and really good private universities. But there are bad ones in each category, too.

For example, Harvard, Duke and Stanford are much better schools than Slippery Rock — but only a little better (on the ondergraduate level) than Berkeley, Georgia Tech, University of Virginia or University of Michigan.

On the other hand even a middle of the road public university is better than private schools like St Johns (the one in Ny — not the ones in MN or MD) or Seton Hall.

And even Slippery Rock is better than private universities like Liberty University or University of Phoenix.

Some people will tell you that the big difference is cost — but this isn’t really true. For example, the tuition at Harvard is astronomical — but because of aid, the average student at Harvard only pays about $15K — roughly the same as the top public universities.

You might want to look at some rankings — like US News to see which public and private schools are good — and which ones are not.