Towson University, often referred to as TU or simply Towson for short, is a public university

Public university

A public university is a university that is predominantly funded by public means through a national or subnational government, as opposed to private universities. A national university may or may not be considered a public university, depending on regions...

 located in Towson

Towson, Maryland

Towson is an unincorporated community and a census-designated place in Baltimore County, Maryland, United States. The population was 55,197 at the 2010 census...

 in Baltimore County

Baltimore County, Maryland

Baltimore County is a county located in the northern part of the US state of Maryland. In 2010, its population was 805,029. It is part of the Baltimore-Washington Metropolitan Area. Its county seat is Towson. The name of the county was derived from the barony of the Proprietor of the Maryland...

, Maryland

Maryland

Maryland is a U.S. state located in the Mid Atlantic region of the United States, bordering Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware to its east...

, U.S.

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 It is a part of the University System of Maryland

University System of Maryland

The University System of Maryland is a public corporation and charter school system comprising 12 Maryland institutions of higher education. It is the 12th-largest university system in the United States, with over 125,000 undergraduate, 43,000 graduate and roughly 13,000 combined full-time and...

.

Founded in 1866 as Maryland's first training school

Normal school

A normal school is a school created to train high school graduates to be teachers. Its purpose is to establish teaching standards or norms, hence its name...

 for teachers, Towson University has evolved into a 4-year degree granting institution consisting of 8 colleges with over 20,000 students enrolled. Towson is also the second largest public university in Maryland, and still produces the most teachers of any university in the state.

The U.S. News & World Report

U.S. News & World Report

U.S. News & World Report is an American news magazine published from Washington, D.C. Along with Time and Newsweek it was for many years a leading news weekly, focusing more than its counterparts on political, economic, health and education stories...

ranked Towson University 8th in the Public Universities-Master’s (North) category for its 2010 America's Best Colleges issue.