to its reconstitution as a more traditional teaching university in 1900. It has been described as "what today would be called a quango", operating out of government premises, staffed by civil servants, and directly accountable to the Treasury for its expenditure. Until 2019, the governing documents of publicly-funded universities could only be modified with permission from the Privy Council. For the majority of publicly-funded universities in England, the Higher Education and Research Act 2017 replaced Privy Council oversight with public interest governance regulations from the Office for Students. However, Privy Council oversight continues for almost all English institutions that were in the university sector before 1992, and would continue even if they were to cease to be publicly-funded, due to their constitutional form as civil corporations, statutory corporations, or as chartered corporations. Notes North America Canada In Canada, education is a constitutional responsibility of the individual provinces. Provincial governments established the University of Toronto on the Oxbridge model and the University of Alberta and University of Manitoba in the pattern of American state universities. Many older universities in Canada were privately endowed such as McGill University or founded by church denominations, such as Université Lavall, St Mary's University, Mount Allison University, Queen's University at Kingston, Dalhousie University, St. Francis Xavier University, McMaster University, and the University of Ottawa; these became publicly funded and secular in the 20th century. All major Canadian universities are now publicly funded but maintain institutional autonomy, with the ability to decide admission, tuition, and governance. Costa Rica In Costa Rica, public universities include the University of Costa Rica, the National University, the Distance State University, National Technical University and the Costa Rica Institute of Technology. Mexico Mexico has both public and private universities, with wide variation in terms of cost, academic performance, and organization. The most reputable and largest university, the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), is publicly funded and virtually free, while also independent from the government. Instituto Politécnico Nacional is a federally-administered public university. Several public state universities follow an autonomous model similar to UNAM, including Universidad de Guadalajara and Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León. However, these state universities do not receive as much public funding, which means higher tuition fees. Panama In Panama, there are five public universities, including the University of Panama and the Technological University of Panama. Public universities are state-funded with no cost or minimal tuition, around US $1,500