This seems like too subtle a question to give hard numbers, but here's the rules of thumb I use, anyway. At minimum you are going to need powerful draw to cycle your deck (something like +3 cards or draw-up-to if you have some trashing/discarding available). Otherwise, the number of times you're even going to get to play that university is going to be small, and then you won't see its product for a while too. (It's the same problem Hoard can have: the speed at which the produced cards enter your deck can be very slow.)
That said, merely having powerful draw is not enough, because as a village, university is bad. Since it only gives +2 actions, it's effectively a Shanty Town that never draws. So I would only consider it if either there are better villages available or if the board is appropriate for a solid draw-up-to engine. (Maybe Torturer is an exception here if there's no way to mitigate its attack.) Well, or if there's enough trashing and the board is super good for engines (e.g. Ambassador). But don't try to play University/Smithy.
Finally, as with all engines, there needs to be some pay-off for building the engine. That means you will probably want +buy and/or a chainable attack like Torturer or Rabble.