Should MTSU Change its Name?

There's been a bit of discussion brewing over a recent

that Murfreesboro state school MTSU, aka Middle Tennessee State University, should think about changing its name.

“It is bringing up a discussion about the name change,” said Brandon Batts, SGA president. “It wasn’t proposing a specific name change.” That said, students went on to say that MTSU should basically consider classing up the joint by calling itself University of Middle Tennessee — which has a prestige factor of 7.4, according to speculation directly off the top of my head.

“In some people’s minds, when they see ‘state university, they don’t see ‘university,’” Batts said. “By having university first, some people think that would be more prestigious.”

I suppose "those people" would include Memphis State, ahem, University of Memphis, who took the more prestigious, rebranded moniker back when I was starting college at MTSU in 1994, coincidentally. And the kid may very well be right about the semantic perception therein. But I figure we're talking about a difference in, er, degree and not in kind, if you'll pardon the pun.