The College of William & Mary in Virginia (also known as William & Mary, or W&M) is a public research university located in Williamsburg, Virginia, United States. Privately founded in 1693 by letters patent issued by King William III and Queen Mary II, it is the second-oldest institution of higher education in the United States after Harvard University and the oldest in the American South. William & Mary is one of the original eight "Public Ivies," a term coined by Richard Moll in 1985 for publicly funded universities providing a quality of education considered comparable to that available in the Ivy League.