Are there three universities

in this state?
There is a renewed debate about the number of universities in this state but it is possible that one of the institutions called a "university" is not a university anyway.
We started out with one of course. It is the oldest of the three. It is the university the Senior Cat attended. I remember going there as a child.  
Perhaps it  was the times when we visited it but I remember times when it was busy with students going to and from lectures. They carried books and talked earnestly to one another. At the refectory you had to show your student identification. At the library - a hushed establishment with students and staff bent over books - you had to show your student identification. I was told to be "very quiet" and was probably the only child ever allowed to enter the library.  (My reputation as a "reader" had gone ahead of me.) 
In my teens I used the same library - illegally. I knew the staff. They would sneak me in and out and ask, "What do you want to know this time?"
In my late teens they were building a second university in what seemed like an improbably remote location on the edge of the city. It was up on a hill. It was bare and unattractive. Unlike the older university it quickly became known as a "very left-wing" institution filled with younger staff. Yes, some of them had very radical views. It was "that sort of place" as a staff member at the old university told me. What was taught there was different.
But yes, it was still a university. It is still a university. Those staff who have not yet retired have aged. The younger staff no longer have tenure and tend to moderate their views because of it.
And then there is the third "university". It was actually an amalgamation of a disparate group of other tertiary institutions, including the teacher training college I attended. It started out with campuses all over the city and suburbs. It still has a variety of campuses. It doesn't have the feel of a university about it. There have been questions asked more than once about the quality of some of the courses offered, courses which were never intended to be university level courses.  The problem was to find somewhere to put some of those things. People took the easy way out and turned certificate courses into diploma courses and diploma courses into degree courses. 
Simply calling something a "Bachelor of...." doesn't make it degree worthy or the institution from which it is obtain a university. The girl next door went to the third university and has a "degree in fine art".  Yes, she produced some interesting art work but she herself admits the course required little in the way of reading or writing.  
My nephews went to the other places, indeed one went to both. I have taught in both the older establishments but not the new one. I have visited the new one, attended some public lectures there and given a couple but I don't know it. All I know is that it doesn't feel like a university to me. 
Now they want to amalgamate the newest one with the oldest one. For administrative reasons it may be a good idea but for practical purposes it may not work.
And they will need to start thinking about what a university actually is.