[NewAmsterdam]

If those are you criteria you may want to have a look at the College of New Jersey. It is a state school, not necessarily conservative, but they seemed very ambitious to me and keen on actually teaching theirstudents something useful, such as reading, writing and using your brain. But please bear in mind, these were just my impressions from a one-day visit, so I may be totally wrong.

[bvw]

I think you mean Trenton State. The name was hijacked by social preeners -- not all a bad lot, as preening like greed can be motives for improvement. Under the temporary name it has a tranvestite (post-op, pre-op?) Trustee, and an active culture of "Tolerance". Yet, there are students and such willimg to buck the PC tide. Housing is tight.