Complex sentence: The founding date of the University of Pennsylvania is surrounded by more subjectivity and institutional debate than the simpler dates used by the eight other colonial era colleges, usually the year in which they were first granted charters and thus became legal corporations.
Split into simpler sentences: The founding date of the University of Pennsylvania is associated with more subjectivity and institutional debate than the more straight-forward dates used by the eight other colonial era colleges. The other seven colonial era colleges consider their founding dates to be the year in which they were first granted charters and thus became legal corporations.