As I understand it, the Northwest Ordinance provided for the funding of schools, resulting in the "land grant" college system that still exists today. The most well known land grant colleges are of course the "flagship" universities of the Midwest states. But the states also chartered many smaller, regional, and specialized schools.
I live in Wisconsin, and the state university system is chartered to serve the needs of the state. There are too many students to send them all to UW in Madison, so there are a number of smaller regional universities, many of which now offer graduate degrees, plus an even larger number of "commuter" and "satellite" schools, and an elaborate technical college and trade school system. Not everybody can get a degree at a residential college. Life gets in the way.
We can debate the relative prestige of these colleges, but I've worked with people who attended the regional schools, including many engineers and computer programmers. All I can say is, send me more.
The colleges that catered to pastors were largely private, and in my home state, there was one in every town. Some of them emerged as full service 4-year colleges with additional programs. My undergraduate college was nominally "Christian" but I got a secular science education there, and it was well ranked in science. It also adjoined a seminary where I never set foot.