"ordinary university" is a correct and usable phrase in written English.
You can use it when referring to an institution of higher education that is not particularly remarkable or noteworthy. For example, "He decided to attend an ordinary university rather than a prestigious liberal arts college."
But Sciences-Po is no ordinary university.
Both Milgram and Zimbardo found that, under certain conditions, well-educated and apparently ordinary university students were capable of immense cruelty.
Mr. Motassadeq was found guilty of having aided several of the Sept. 11 suicide hijackers, including Mohamed Atta, Marwan al-Shehhi and Ziad Samir Jarrah, by helping them maintain the pose of being ordinary university students, paying for their tuition and rent, though it was never established whether he knew of the planned timing, scale or targets of the attacks.
In 1929 Fermi, as Italy's first professor of theoretical physics and a rising star in European science, was named by Italian Prime Minister Benito Mussolini to his new Accademia d'Italia, a position that included a substantial salary (much larger than that for any ordinary university position), a uniform, and a title ("Excellency").
In ordinary university courses or in continuing professional education organized by employers, it is not easy to meet these requirements.
In the natural sciences and engineering, the term "external promotion" usually means work at a research institute or in industry--an environment that may actually be more stimulating that "ordinary" university life.
If they are to compete with ordinary universities, MOOC providers must get better at teaching newcomers to academia.
The university charges double the tuition fees of ordinary universities at just over £6,000, but many complete their degrees in two, rather than three years.
"And I knew that an ordinary Japanese university would not prep me for that".
In the quarter-century after World War II, the country established collective structures, not individual monuments, that channeled the aspirations of ordinary people: state universities, progressive taxation, interstate highways, collective bargaining, health insurance for the elderly, credible news organizations.
The cleverest go to Gymnasien, the main route to university; the ordinary are sent to Realschulen; and the dullards attend Hauptschulen, often breeding-grounds for disaffection.
