An institution organized and incorporated for the
   purpose of imparting instruction, examining students, and otherwise
   promoting education in the higher branches of literature, science, art,
   etc., empowered to confer degrees in the several arts and faculties, as
   in theology, law, medicine, music, etc. A university may exist without
   having any college connected with it, or it may consist of but one
   college, or it may comprise an assemblage of colleges established in
   any place, with professors for instructing students in the sciences and
   other branches of learning.