Is it just a name? Or is there something more to it?
It’s not a strict rule, but generally colleges do not have graduate or research programs. Universities do.
Just to clarify: Generally, you can get a Bachelor’s degree (B.A., B.S.) at a college, but not a Master’s or a Doctorate.
Also, in a lot of cases, a university will contain more than one college. The university I went to for grad school had a college of arts and sciences, a business school, a school of public affairs, etc.
The school I attend is a branch of the University of Minnesota, and it is made up of several different colleges- College of Science and Engineering, College of Fine Arts, etc.
Hmmm…well, at my college, they were talking about starting a graduate program for history majors (and I’m definitely going back!)
That, however, is almost entirely nomenclature, and not paid much attention outside the university itself. And for someone applying to “college,” it can be downright confusing. Especially when you consider that at many schools (Yale, Duke, Rice), “college” refers to the dormotories that the students live at. College in both these senses does not mean an independent school, rather just a naming convention that sounds neat.
When an institution of higher learning bills itself to the outside world as Such-and-Such College, then you know that it probably only offers undergraduate degrees. In any other context, the meaning can be varied.
Well, if they decide to start such a program, they might consider a name change! However, some colleges do have limited graduate programs, and many times this involves awarding the degrees through another institution. It depends on what the goals of your college are. If they are looking to expand and grow as an institution, you may see a change soon on the marquee.
Historically, a college was a school that conferred only bachelor’s degrees, while a university was an institution consisting of several different schools offering several different levels of degrees (bachelor’s, master’s, doctorates).
But a quick caution: the name a school goes by may not tell the whole story. Boston College, for instance, is a university in all but name (it offers graduate degrees in many fields, and has its own law school). Presumably, it would have changed its name long ago, except that there’s ALREADY another school calling itself Boston University.
In the Canadian province of Ontario (and as far as I know, in the rest of the country as well) the following holds true:
College: A place you go to study a trade. You get a diploma (sometimes a certificate), and you can be a carpenter, plumber, airplane pilot, etc.
University: A place you go to study in a ‘discipline’. You get a degree (Undergraduate, Master’s, Doctor, etc.) and you can be a physicist, lawyer, engineer, etc.
‘College’ is also used to refer to smaller private institutions that teach single courses, like ‘How to use a computer’.
‘College’ was at one time used differently, before the current distinction came to be. This is reflected in the names of older universities, for example, the Royal Military College and the University of Ottawa (formerly College of Bytown) which were both founded in the mid-nineteenth century.
There are some exceptions to the rule. For example, there exists a University College of the Fraser Valley, which offers some degrees and some diplomas. And at the University of Toronto, students must apply via one of the school’s federated Colleges. They still get degrees, though.
astorian and chriszarate have it right. That’s what it is supposed to mean (or used to mean). There are a number of colleges who have changed their names to “university” in the past decade or so. They say it better reflects the scope of what they do, but I think the real impetus is that it’s a prestige thing. Some people apparently feel that “a university” sounds like a more impressive place than a “mere” college. I don’t agree.
Historically, in the middle ages, a University was comprised of a number of separate colleges in different fields and all together comprised universal knowledge at that time. That is the origin of the name. Or so I’ve heard. I had not been born yet.
What would be the oldest “universities”? My guess is that old European universities were mostly founded between 1150 and 1450. . . . Anyone have any dates?
Not in Quebec. There, college usually refers to what is known in French as CÉGEP (College d’Enseignement Général Et Professionnel). College follows five years of high school. There are general and technical programs. General programs last (in theory) two years and lead to university. Technical programs last (typically) three years and lead to a job (usually).
Sorbonne, Paris, founded 1257.
Oxford, England, somewhere between 1096 and 1167.
Al-Azhar, Cairo, 975 - though it seems you could argue it wasn’t really a university at that stage.
To add to the Canadian definition:
Quebec is, of course, different from the ROC (DISTINCT SOCIETY!!)
Sorry.
By that, I mean that our colleges are known as Cegeps, which is an accronym for College d’education generale et professionel (College of general and vocational education). In some ways, it is much like the Ontarian description of a college: tourism, nursing assistants, special care counselling, police technology, welding, etc are taught at the college level as a vocation.
The general education aspect is a little different, and it somewhat like the grade 12/13 that Ontario has, except more like university in terms of atmosphere. Quebeckers finish high school in grade 11, and to go to a Quebec university, they need to have a general college diploma. Most colleges offer similar programs in the Sciences, Social Sciences, Creative Arts, Liberal Arts, etc. These are generalised programs, offering the “background” or fundamentals of a subject that are often taught in first year in university in other provinces. Since I have a diploma in the Sciences, I was exempted from most of my first year classes at my University, in Ontario.
To give you an idea, we took 7 or 8 courses a semester, and I finished in 2 years (the "Expected time it takes to get a diploma). In that, I took the following courses:
2 Calculus
1 Linear Algebra
2 General Chemistry
2 Organic Chemistry (as options)
2 Biology (one of which was an option)
3 Physics (Newtonian mechanics, Electricity and magnetism, and Wave Motion and Modern Physics)
4 English courses
2 French courses
3 Humanities
3 Physical Education
2 Complementary courses (I took a computing course and a poly Sci course)
Sorry I rattled on a little there. Cegep was probably one of the best times of my life!
Another Canadian chiming in:
They’re also mixed up in Alberta.
Colleges mostly give out non-degrees, but several have begun giving BAs etc. I don’t think they give out graduate degrees.
Universities are the big boys who do non-degrees, degrees, and graduate degrees.
Bologna, 1088.
Salamanca, Spain, 1218
Siena, 1240
Oxford, England, 1249
Sorbonne, 1253
Cambridge, England, first college, 1284
Louvain, Belgium, 1425
Glasgow, 1451
Alcalá, Spain, 1499
English definition -
College is for people aged 16-18/19 to get A-Levels, GNVQs, etc., University is for people over 18 to get a BA, BSc, MA, etc.
I can amplify what chriszarate mentioned about the use of the term “college” at schools like Rice (where I did my undergrad work).
Rice University divides itself academically into eight different schools (Architecture, Engineering, Humanities, Social Sciences, etc.). At some places these would be known as colleges, and I’ve seen several other institutions that also use the term “school.” At the California Institute of Technology, the equivalent organizational level is known as a division. Different names for essentially the same thing.
The term “college” has a relatively peculiar (for the US) meaning at Rice, and one which causes a fair amount of confusion.
The undergraduate student body is divided into eight “residential colleges” (simply “colleges” for short), which are patterned after the entities by the same name at places like Oxford and Cambridge in the UK. (At least, that’s what I was led to understand). The term “college” can refer to either the students who make up the college, or to the building that they live in.
I was a member and resident of the spectacularly ugly Lovett College, which is not to be confused with Lovett Hall - another building some distance away. (This also confused many campus visitors.)
“Oh, so basically you mean dorms.” Well, to a first approximation, but there’s more to it than that. All entering undergrads are assigned at random (there are circumstances in which a student has some influence, but that’s not important here) to one of the eight colleges. The point here is that the colleges are not made up of any particular major, interest, or discipline - each one is a reasonable cross-section of the entire student body.
Students remain a member of their college even if they choose to live off-campus. Students who do live on campus are required to live in their college. (It is possible to switch colleges, but some justification is required and it’s extremely rare IME.) Each college has its own dining facility and lounge area, known somewhat grandiosely as a “commons.” Students could eat at any college they chose. Most students I knew simply found it more convenient/comfortable to eat in their own college the majority of the time.
Each college had a “master” - a faculty member who lived on campus with his/her family in a house connected to the college (known, for example, as Lovett House), and was ultimately in charge of the whole affair. There were also a couple of “resident associates” - (normally single) faculty or staff members who lived in the college, in quarters somewhat (but not a lot) larger than those given to the students. In addition to that, faculty members could, if they chose, become “associates” of a particular college. This could amount to nothing, or it could result in close relationships with many students - kinda depended on just how much the professor in question was really interested.
The basic idea is that the colleges form the root of each student’s social and academic experience, having a much stronger sense of community than a typical dormitory. In my experience, this was largely (but not entirely) true. Whether or not this was a good thing is really a matter of opinion: there were those who felt the whole concept was pretty divisive, while others liked it a lot. That’s for another thread.
All of this is totally separate from the casual use of the term “college” in the US to mean just about any baccalaureate education. (e.g., “I went to college at Rice University,” is perfectly sensible in the American vernacular.)
That’s only a partial definition.
In practice, the word “college” is used both formally and informally in the UK. The informal use is synonymous with brad_d’s comment: …the casual use of the term “college” in the US to mean just about any baccalaureate education… “College” is used less commonly for that purpose than other colloquialisms such as “uni” for university, but it is used that way.
The formal use has two cases:
- As Tuco says - an institution attended after completing compulsory schooling, which offers qualifications below degree level, or
- One of the divisions of a collegiate university, such as Oxford, Cambridge, London, Durham etc. A full list can be found here.