:Please look at the formulation on: http://www.alumni.cornell.edu/cu_facts/read_more.cfm?id=32 regarding the differences between statutory and endowed colleges.  Again the problem I have with the "contract" analogy is that a contract usually involves mutual agreement.  Here, we have unilateral action.  The legislature enacted laws to charter Cornell as a whole as the land grant university and later to create five statutory colleges.  They unilaterally pulled the plug on the NYS College of Forestry, and could do the same on the other four.  The annual appropriation process is by no means locked in as a contractual entitlement.  I think that the current version of the Cornell main article is misleading the reader.