Board Thread:Questions and Answers/@comment-26879709-20150811163830/@comment-61022-20150812174157

Peter originally ended up going to ESU on a scholarship. (Not really well explained when Pete graduated in but certainly brought up in  and -) But it's never really clear if ESU is a public or private university. It could be either way. I mean you have Peter and Flash Thompson, both not coming from wealthy families getting in on scholarships -- but then you have Harry Osborn who came from an affluent family, and Gwen who is the daughter of an retired police captain.

Mind you, so many of Peter's supporting cast over the years would enroll at ESU, I suspect that it's probably a public university. It seems unlikely that many of the Spider-Man supporting cast could afford getting into ESU if it was a private school, and the number of people in Peter's life who succeeded at doing so are somewhat improbable.