The Ohio State University, commonly Ohio State or OSU, is a public land-grant research university in Columbus, Ohio. The flagship of the University System of Ohio, it is considered a Public Ivy, and has been ranked by major institutional rankings as among the best public universities in the United States. Founded in 1870 as the state's land-grant university and the ninth university in Ohio with the Morrill Act of 1862, Ohio State was originally known as the Ohio Agricultural and Mechanical College and focused on various agricultural and mechanical disciplines but it developed into a comprehensive university under the direction of then-Governor and later U.S. president Rutherford B. Hayes, and in 1878 the Ohio General Assembly passed a law changing the name to "the Ohio State University" and broadening the scope of the university. Admission standards have been significantly tightened since the late 1980s.
