This study discusses four states: California, Colorado, Michigan, and Minnesota considered by scholars to have provided their state universities with great autonomy from state government through their constitutions and matched them with four states: Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Wisconsin, which have distinguished universities of a similar size whose legal base is purely statutory. The first chapter establishes the legal and historical base of both statutory and constitutional universities. The second chapter is a brief description of the social milieu and the state organizational context in which the university finds itself. The third chapter reveals the study findings obtained from documents and records as well as from interviews and questionnaires. The fourth chapter analyzes the interrelationships of the four principal sets of actors involved in the study--governor's staffs, legislative staffs, state coordinators, and institutional leaders. The last chapter provides tentative conclusions about the operational meaning of constitutional and statutory status and the implications of the findings for institutional autonomy and independence. (Author/MJM)