That's the way it is in most states - you have multiple tiered systems. The top tier is the "University" then the "State" system, then the community colleges. While there are a few states where the "State" system rivals the "University" or is better, like Florida and definitely Ohio, if you look at states like Minnesota, Washington, California, Texas, Colorado, etc - they all have similar tiers (this is done from memory, so I could've made mistakes here).

The general difference is that the "University" system is designed to be a research focus, while the "State" systems do more education and some research, and the community colleges are almost exclusively education.

The primary job of faculty at UConn is not teaching. That doesn't get you tenure, that gets you a professor-in-residence position.

(note - lots of generalizations here)