Until recently I assume they were synonymous 😅, Here you go to Uni immediatly after finishing HS.
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.
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)
It’s contextual. My understanding is that in British English, “going to uni” is equivalent to the American English “going to college”. At least in the US, the word college colloquially refers to undergrad, though a lot of colleges do offer postgraduate programs.
One is more pretentious than the other and costs more money. 🙃
That is the difference.
University is where Great Thinkers go to become egg heads and where rich kids go to pretend they’re Great Thinkers.
College is where kids go to learn how to weld and program and change bed pans.
and program
just you wait until you learn that people learn to program at university too
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
Sort of. There are colleges within university in the US too, we just don’t usually talk about it
Yep. I was apart of my uni’s stem college. I want to say there were probably 5 or 6 colleges in my uni
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.
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.
In the US there’s really no set differentiation. There’s 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 small… however, there’s even exceptions to that, if I remember right there’s 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.
As someone who lives in the US, that is not true. All universities are colleges, but not all colleges are universities. A community college is not a university.
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.
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.
It can get confusing though because a lot of places that are universities still call themselves “____ College” due to tradition
In most countries, a university is a collection of colleges (although most people don’t know that).
That is not true at all.
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.
In Australia - nothing. We generally call them universities, but some call themselves colleges.
