What's the difference between "College" and "University"?
What's the difference between "College" and "University"?
Until recently I assume they were synonymous ๐ , Here you go to Uni immediatly after finishing HS.
74 comments
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In the US, they're the same. In most countries, a university is a collection of colleges (although most people don't know that).
In countries where universities and colleges are considered separate entities (i.e. most countries), universities are still considered more prestigious, although it's much easier to get a BS/no job degree from an university than a college
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In the US, a University is usually a collection of colleges. Each college has a somewhat independent structure from other colleges within the University, and each is led by its own Dean. Each college has different requirements of entry and provide rules for what it takes to get a degree from that college. But ultimately, you get a degree from something like "The University of Whatever, College of Engineering". All the colleges have some certain amount of oversight and guidelines set up by the overall institution.
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In Australia "college" can mean two different things.
It can be another word for high school, especially for exclusive, elite private schools. (For example: Brisbane Boys' College.)
It can be a term for a particular type of residence within a university, especially one that provides more than just a room, but also meals and social activities. (For example, Emmanuel College UQ.)
Historically, it also had at least one other meaning. Among boomer teachers I know, I've heard talk of having gone to "teacher's college". So I think it used to be a sort of more specialised educational institution with a narrower focus than a university. But these don't exist anymore, to my knowledge.
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Heh. I went to BBC.
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In the US, they're the same.
Are you sure?
I've always thought of universities as educational institutions funded (in part) by the state. So, tuition for "The University of Colorado" is partially subsided by the taxes people pay to the state of Colorado.
Colleges are not funded by the state, therefore have a higher tuition than universities.
At least that's the theory. However, both universities and colleges have become so profit focused, I don't know how much cheaper universities are now-a-days.
I'd also argue that a university in the U.S. is more prestigious than many colleges (the exception being Ivy league schools), because universities being cheaper means a high demand for being accepted, which means applicant need "be better" to gain admittance.
In the job market, however, you are absolutely right: college VS university - it doesn't matter.
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Universities can be public or private. They are simply a collection of colleges. An example of a single college that is not part of a university would be a community college.
As for which is more prestigious, most colleges not part of a university generally only offer Associate's degrees with some offering Bachelor's degrees. Universities offer those along with graduate level degrees. You are correct that universities tend to be tougher to get into.
Past your first job, nobody really gives a shit where you went.
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In the US thereโs really no set differentiation. Thereโs no rules that colleges have to be private or universities have to be public. Harvard is a college (undergrad) and a university, neither are funded by the state.
The general way it works is, universities are large, colleges are smallโฆ however, thereโs even exceptions to that, if I remember right thereโs a university in Alaska that only enrolls like 300 people. A lot of colleges in my state are state funded because they are 2 year community colleges. A lot of our universities have 4 year liberal arts colleges at them.
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In most countries, a university is a collection of colleges (although most people donโt know that).
That is not true at all.
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It is true in my country (India), and, considering that we borrowed this system from the British, true in many other countries as well.
For example, University College London and King's College London are part of the University of London.
The autonomy enjoyed by the colleges within a university would vary from uni to uni, and sometimes even from college to college within the same university. Generally, at least the 'higher' degrees are given in the name of the University.
Some universities have centrally run departments, and these are usually more prestigious than the constituent colleges. Others are purely affiliating unis and only perform administrative duties.
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From what I understand, colleges focus mainly on undergraduates, while universities provide undergraduate and graduate programs. It doesn't necessarily mean that colleges are always smaller or have less resources than universities though.
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so is not like a pre-university kinda of thing?
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It's one of those things that varies significantly from place to place
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In the UK, yes (mostly). In our system, we've got further education (sixth form or college) which sits between high school and higher education (university). As well as providing A-level courses, colleges often provide more vocational courses that don't necessarily lead into higher education. For example, my local college has hairdressing and bricklaying courses.
Confusingly, some universities are also made up of colleges. I think this is a minority of universities, though, and anecdotally, seems to be the older ones (Oxford, Cambridge, etc)
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In Canada, the difference is generally that universities offer degrees while colleges offer diplomas and certificates. Degrees generally take longer to earn that diplomas or certificates and would include things like bachelors degrees, masters degrees, PhDs, etc.
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But also every university is a collection of colleges. For instance, there will be a college of arts and sciences, a college of engineering, a college of medicine, etc all at a single university
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True although in Canada we tend to refer to the colleges in collegiate universities as faculties, and so the word college remains dedicated to the separate kind of post secondary institution the other dude described.
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Exactly the same for my country.
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In New Zealand a university is a form of higher/tertiary education institution.
A college is a high school that's trying to sound fancy.
The kind of place that the US calls "community college" would be called a "polytech" here.
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A college is a high school thatโs trying to sound fancy.
Te awamutu college would like to have a word here
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They should go hard and change their name to Te Awamutu Grammar. :)
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Apparently French works the same way ("university" = tertiary, "college" = high school), at least if Duolingo is to be believed.
The kind of place that the US calls "community college" would be called a "polytech" here.
I'm not necessarily doubting you, but I would've guessed "polytech" would be more like a "trade school" (where you go to learn skills for blue-collar jobs, like welding, plumbing, auto repair, etc.) than a "community college" (where you go for two years to earn an associates' degree in stuff like liberal arts or business or nursing, possibly before transferring somewhere else to continue towards your bachelors').
(That's despite the fact that "polytech" around here can also refer to four-year engineering schools, although ones that are lower-tier than research universities. For example, the former "Southern Polytechnic State University" ("Southern Poly") vs. "Georgia Institute of Technology" ("Georgia Tech") here in GA. Ironically, the latter is self-deprecatingly nicknamed "North Avenue Trade School," LOL!)
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Iโm not necessarily doubting you, but I wouldโve guessed โpolytechโ would be more like a โtrade schoolโ
That's how they started out. But in New Zealand there are only 8 universities.
Polytechs nowadays still offer trades vocational but they also offer other qualifications in things like nursing or business management. Here is the wikipedia for one of the biggest ones, you can get an idea of the scope: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UnitecInstituteofTechnology
(Fun fact: there used to be 7 universities but one tech managed to transform itself so now the city of Auckland has University of Auckland and also "Auckland University of Technology")
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In the US, universities have a significant number of graduate degrees along with undergraduate degrees while colleges offer (almost) exclusively undergraduate degrees. My alma mater became a university shortly before I started because they started offering enough graduate degrees.
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This is the correct answer for the US. "College" in my mind is more basic, too. Nothing wrong with it, and there are definitely colleges that graduate more competent BSs than some universities' BSs because their departments are focused on graduate level work.
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A university is a typically a collection of colleges (or schools).
For example: Harvard University is made up of Harvard College, Harvard Business School, Harvard Divinity School, Harvard Kennedy School, Harvard Law School, Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, etc.
For all intents and purposes - we use the word โcollegeโ and โuniversityโ interchangeably because theyโre the same level of education. Either can do associates through doctoral.
Community colleges, however, only focus on 2 year degrees and certain certifications.
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Itโs contextual. My understanding is that in British English, โgoing to uniโ is equivalent to the American English โgoing to collegeโ. At least in the US, the word college colloquially refers to undergrad, though a lot of colleges do offer postgraduate programs.
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In Canada a college is what the US would call a Community College, while more academic institutions are all called universities here.
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I'm the US there are 3 that I can think of:
- They are synonymous in the general sense. "Yeah, I graduated from college."
- Specifically a 2-year school, but usually this will be community College or something similar.
- Sub organizations in a large university
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This is the definition I'm most familiar with. A 2 year community college for an Associate's Degree. Whereas universities are 4 year institutions for Bachelor's Degrees.
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In the US, we colloquially 'go to college'. College refers to higher education in general.
Then, in more academic terms, A university is a larger place of higher ed made up of schools and colleges. You also have liberal arts colleges that do not have these colleges/schools. We also have two-year community colleges that may be more similar to vocational schools or FE colleges in the UK.
Then we get to the level of fun: Boston College is actually a university. :-)
Source: I lived overseas and told people I attended College, which caused them to cross-examine me about whether I have a 4-year degree because in their country people go to university/uni and college is something else. Different places, different terminology.
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In the UK college generally means the period between 16-18 where you do your final university entrance qualifications (A levels). People also do those at sixth forms but those tend to be attached to secondary schools, whereas colleges are separate institutions. Universities are where you get a degree.
Some universities here have colleges (in the sense that it's a small community within the university) but it's not hugely common outside of Oxford and Cambridge.
You also used to have the word 'college' attached to schools as a branding thing (to make them seem more academically rigorous) but the ones I know that have had that became academies
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My local sixth form is called the Sixth Form College and is not attached to a school! There's a spanner in your works ๐
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The answer varies inside and outside the US.
In most countries, Universities offer 4+ year programs and offer accredited degrees. These undergraduate degrees prepare you for even more advanced agrees like Masters or Doctorate ( PhD ). Universities offer medical and law degrees. Universities are the elite schools and are generally only found in larger centres. Colleges on the other hand tend to be vocational and more simply adult study. A college issues a diploma, not a degree and is typically not accredited in the same way. Colleges can be very regional.
You would go to university to get a law degree and collage to get a diploma in criminology. You would go to university to become an engineer and college to become a technician.
In the US, the term college is often used to refer to universities as well and universities sometimes offer a mix of degree and diploma programs. Somebody that went to a state university might refer to it as college. The term Ivy League identifies schools that other countries would identify as universities. In the US, the term community college is more representative of what other countries call colleges. That said, community colleges in the US can be of lower quality than most countries would tolerate ( in my view ).
In Canada, the system is slowly moving towards the US standard. Many colleges or technical institutes are trying to position themselves as universities. There is a rapid increase in the number of colleges, especially those catering to international students.
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The relationship that I see most often is that universities are made up of colleges. As in, a college usually addresses a (reasonably) related topic and only grants degrees on that topic/area. A college has a dean that heads it. Once a college grows large enough to split into two colleges (two deans), then you get a chancellor who oversees both colleges and now you've got a university. You can then add more colleges as you see fit, and it's still a university just with more colleges and deans.
The term "community college" is a US term that speaks to an educational institution that usually focuses mostly on associates (2 year) degrees as a post K-12 school. Community colleges can do four year degrees, but if they get too much of them, they will change their name to just be a college or university at that point.
Yes, there are schools that call themselves universities in US even though they only have what amounts to a single area of degrees and should be called a college just because the title "university" is more prestigious. No, there's really no governing bodies that determine what can be called a college or university, so it's really just the name of the corporation. All of this is more like guidelines ala the Pirate Code.
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In Thailand, a university provides a four-year standard higher education. A college is either:
- a specific school for a specific profession such as the Irrigation College, now partially absorbed into Faculty of Engineering, Kasetsart University; or the Teaching Colleges, nowadays restructured into the Rajabhat University System. There are some technical colleges still standing, but many are already absorbed or restructured because our academic system does not really favor single-discipline schools standing around
- a single school in a university or a specific organizational unit (such as the Mahidol University International College)
- a two-year college (community college system)
- it's also just how some secondary schools are named, such as Bangkok Christian College (which is a higher secondary school for boys)
In our language, if you are going to take a four-year higher ed program, you always say university not college.
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Everything you wrote is basically the same as how it works in the US, except for that last sentence about never calling four-year programs "college."
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Not sure where you live, but here in Costa Rica, college is the equivalent to High School.
Source: I am from Costa Rica and I'm on my 10th year (4th year on high school)
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chile, HS isn't even that much of a real thing here, here is 8 years of basic education, 4 years of "middle education", (wich more times than not isยดt thaaat different to basic education, but kinda is HS) and then University/trade school/army/carab. academy/directly to work
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I think it depends on your country. Here in the UK, for example, a college is usually an alternative to a school for GCSEs or A-levels. It can also be for specific vocational training - e.g. art college.
As far as I can tell - in the US college & university are synonymous. They also often use school to refer to the same place.
In the UK, if someone asked you where you went to school, you would assume they wanted to know what secondary (high) school you went to. It would never occur to you that they meant uni!
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In my country there are no colleges, that's why the doubt.
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Depends on your country. Generally, college is more practical, whereas university is more theory. An example of this would be learning different programming languages and web development in a hands-on manner versus learning general computer science topics like algorithms, datastructures, compiler theory, etc.
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In Ireland they mean the same thing. i.e. third level education, the place where undergraduates get a bachelors degree.
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In Australia - nothing. We generally call them universities, but some call themselves colleges.
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In Brazil they're pretty much the same although technically a university offers more courses and colleges are more specific, like for example an engineering/technology focused college.
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In the US, a university offers at least 1 Master or higher degree in some field. A college's highest degree is an Associate (community college) or Bachelor.
A university will refer to it's smaller degree areas as College such as College of Educational, College of Business. This is to differentiate them from administrative departments. In the same vain, college's will have schools of education or business, ect.
In the UK (by what my Brit friends have taught me) college is more like US high school, and university is the education after that (the post secondary education). My friend's child would be in US high school, but is attending college in England.
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The footnote for that is that some schools have โcollegeโ in their names due to name recognition, even though they are functionally universities.
For example, Boston College is actually a university, and is considered more prestigious than Boston University.
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You're sort of right about the UK, colleges are usually institutions that offer higher education, usually to 17-18 year olds, but are not a school. But there are colleges that offer to lower ages and to higher ages, but not offering degrees. College is like a catch all term for non school/university based education
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Sort of like pudding be a catch all for food ๐
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College is generally more vocational, while University is academic. You go to University to get a professional degree, a Bachelors, Masters or Doctorate, but it's technically more research-oriented while you go to college to get work qualifications in a specific field. The vocational qualifications can run a little parallel to the academic ones typically up to or just below a Bachelors - eg some electrical qualifications can go towards or are equivalent to a regular degree.
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My limited understanding is that a College has an affiliation with a University(which also accepts students directly and is often more prestigious than a college) to enroll students and take exams
I'm still new to it myself and haven't done much research
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Universities are composed of colleges.
Colleges specialize in specific areas of study.
For example: college of education, college of music, etc.
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Nope, those are called faculties here.
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vs
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One is more pretentious than the other and costs more money. ๐
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