I've never understood the whole liberal arts college schtick. Something like 60% of their students major in business or education. Yes, they have some basic arts and science requirements, but so does every respectable university in the country. I'll grant them "undergraduate focused," but in no way are they a liberal arts college.
Ohio does have a much broader based selection of graduate and professional degrees. I'd like to see a lot more of them reach into the top 100 though.
If I could magically put the toothpaste back into the tube, this is how I would have restructured the system in the 1960s. Just make the damned deal with the devil and anoint OSU as the flagship. It's what they were before Rhodes and what they quickly reasserted themselves as after Rhodes. Ohio becomes the system's other comprehensive research university and is given medical and law schools at that time. Ohio, OSU and Miami are granted selective admissions and let the chips fall where they may. Toledo and Akron are merged into Bowling Green and Kent. They are limited grad/research universities with open admissions undergraduate. When Cincinnati comes into the system in the late 70s, they would be a second comprehensive research university alongside Ohio. Wright and later Shawnee are probably never founded. Also, no branch campuses. The state has a statewide community college system.
EDIT: And regarding "public ivy" that was the result of some long forgotten book that came out in the early 80's. It had no methodology and was the completely subjective opinion of one guy who included Miami and Vermont over far more likely choices like Wisconsin, Illinois or Washington as a means to gin up a little controversy and talk. As I've mentioned, I had to spend a miserable weekend researching Miami's claim that they had been anointed as "the honors campus of the university system." They were desperately trying to get OSU's selective admissions rolled back and Ohio's killed in the womb. It was all a myth. There wasn't a single piece of legislation or executive action by a Governor or Regents Chair that ever did that.
Thanks for the information on the number of Miami students graduating with business degrees. I didn't realize that the percentage was that high. I guess I fell for the "public ivy" notion, without looking at the actual data. I guess I should have known better, though, because my eldest daughter went there two years before she "saw the light" and transferred to OHIO.
I'd like to turn the clock back even further than your hypothetical to right after the Morrill Act was passed and have Miami and Ohio cooperate and split the A and M, which was legal, and have two Morrill Act Land Grant schools in the Buckeye State before the concept of starting a brand new school in Columbus was even a glimmer in the collective eyes of the General Assembly. According to Thomas Hoover, who wrote the seminal history of Ohio University, there was a small window of opportunity for a few years post rebellion when this could have happened. But, Hoover implies that the unwillingness of Ohio and Miami to devise a joint plan in the first few legislative sessions postwar gave time for other possibilities to develop and the idea of a new university to emerge as a salient concept.
It would have been a pretty narrow window. Hayes comes in as Governor in January 1866, and he becomes the primary catalyst for founding the new university, putting it in Columbus away from the agricultural interests in Springfield and having it adopt a full classical curriculum. Aa part of his wheeling and dealing he ended up creating the University of Cincinnati as we know it. To get the support of the Cincy pols, he agreed to a bill allowing municipal universities in cities over 150K in population (only Cincy at the time). The Cincinnati founders then cobbled together several smaller colleges and endowed it as the municipal University of Cincinnati. The 1809 founding date they claim is merely the oldest of those colleges. For all intents and purposes, they were founded around 1871 or 1872.
As I re-read Hoover he provides some interesting detail.
First, in 1865 a commission set up by the legislature made a report recommending that the the Morrill land grant be split with one half going to Miami as an A&M and other half to a new college to be created in northern Ohio. A minority report recommended replacing Miami with a school in College Hill near Cincinnati. Neither report was adopted by the legislature.
Second, from 1865-70, Hoover says that "the question of founding an Ohio agricultural and mechanical college dragged on." He lists three proposals that got consideration during that time period: 1. Establishment of a new independent college with some emphasis on scientific and classical education, 2. The division of the grant between Ohio and Miami universities, each of which would establish an agricultural and mechanical department, and 3. the division of funds among a number of institutions, all of which would establish agricultural and mechanical departments.
He then says that the commissioner of education suggested a fourth plan, which would have "divided the funds between a centrally located professional institution and three well-endowed colleges in different parts of the state, which would be required to offer training in agriculture and science. Presumably, Ohio University would have been included in this plan."
Professor Hoover says that in this five year period that the Ohio and Miami trustees continued to lobby the legislature, often in conjunction with one another.
It's obviously a complex period in history, and with a few breaks could have gone more in Ohio University's favor. For instance, if John Brough, Ohio alumnus and Marietta native, had not died in office in 1865, he might have exerted significant influence in our favor. As a beloved war-time governor, he had tremendous political power.
FYI: Rutherford B. Hayes did not become Ohio governor until 1868. When Brough died he was succeeded by Lt. Governor Charles Anderson (1865-66), then Jacob Cox (1866-68), then Hayes (1868-72), Edward Noyes (1872-74), William Allen (1874-76), and then Hayes again (1876-71).
Edit: Very interesting detail about the University of Cincinnati. I'm curious, do you know the oldest of those colleges that went into the merged school? The one founded in 1809?