It's not a free college. It was founded in 1838 and has about 31,000 students. In-state tuition (for Virginia residents) normally runs $13,000. For out-of-staters, it's $31,600.
But it's an urban college (a negative) in Richmond (which, despite being the state capital, is another negative.)
About 10% of the graduating seniors at Joey's high school go to VCU each year.
Virginia has several universities that are better known: The University of Virginia, Virginia Tech, George Mason University, William & Mary and James Madison University. There are many others that are less known: Radford University, Christopher Newport University, the University of Richmond, etc.
When I lived in California, it was simpler. You had the University of California (many campuses), California State University (many campuses), Stanford, and USC. That was about it.
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