The training center where I work is called, by the company, “Chevron Technical University”. No colleges, just some computer and management type classes.
Peace,
mangeorge
Don’t forget about Hamburger Univeristy, McDonald’s executive training program.
In Ontario, back in the 70’s, the distinction was based on whether the institution could grant degrees. One could be accepted at a college, for a degree program, but the college had to be associated with a university recognized by the province. I recall the Ryerson was once a college, but is now called a university becuase it can now grant degrees.
The College of William and Mary is another example of a university-sized institution that still calls itself a college, purely out of tradition.
For an example in the other direction, Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas is an institution more in the traditional “college” mold. It awards only bachelor’s degrees, offering no graduate programs at all.
SU has a somewhat tortuous history, but from what I can gather the current school came about as Texas University in 1873, and was changed to Southwestern University two years later. However, the charter of TU/SU also essentially absorbs as its own the graduates of the by-then-defunct Rutersville College, Wesleyan College, Soule University, and McKenzie College. Read the full story here if you really care.
The reason I looked all that mess up was the thought that perhaps it began life as “Southwestern College” and then changed its name. But that’s not what happened. 
the University of California at Santa Cruz is organized in a virtually identical manner.
The diference between a college and a university?
A couple of extra thousand dollars worth of tuition.
There are also colleges of higher education, offering HND and degree courses. Some have changed their names recently (eg "University College, Worcester " ) and one or two became univeristies (e.g. Cheltenham and Gloucester College). The distinction between colleges or institutes of HE and universities is that the former do not carry out research (so can’t award docorates). I presume that, broadly speaking, this is not so dissimilar from the US situation.
If any University of London alumni or undergrads are reading this, perhaps they could clarify something for me. This institution always appears slightly different than other collegiate universities, in that although I’ve met academics that say the work at Cambridge or Durham, for example, I’ve never heard anyone same the work at (or indeed study at) the University of London - it’s always “I’m at Imperial” or “I’ve moved to Goldsmith’s”. I got the impression that although the uni still awards degrees, the colleges might have more to do with the actual running of courses that at other such institutions (e.g. a chemistry degree is run by and attended by students of Imperial, whereas at say, Oxford, it is run by the univeristy and attended by students of several colleges.
Not at all. Ever look at the tuition for Amherst or Swarthmore? $36,000/year for the latter. Harvard is actually ever-so-slightly cheaper (by a couple hundred bucks or so.)
From the University of Cambridge site:
I am a member of both the University of Cambridge and Darwin College. One of the conditions of entry from the University was that I had to find a College willing to accept me before the University would agree to teach me. I have to pay two sets of fees also, one to the University and one to my College - cheeky b*stards!
Being a member of a College entitles you to use all resources belonging to the University, however each College has facilities that are only available to members of that particular College: in many cases, the libraries of individual Colleges are much better than departmental university libraries, which is a bit of a pain if you are stuck in one of the ‘lesser’ Colleges.
in college you get prepared to go to the university …
in the university, you simply wish you go back to college…
Bah, everybody knows a university is what a college becomes when it stops caring about its students 
An exception to this historical rule would be medical colleges, which (obviously) awarded doctorates. These days, many, if not all, of them have changed their names to universities, because they incorporate other health-field-related colleges (nursing, pharmacology, radiation technology, etc.).
there are non conferring colleges within the university conferring structure as said.
the word college seems to have many meanings
university is quite explicit.
dear mrcrow
true
college has many different meanings in different countries I visited…
in France, College is not what College is in the US
that what i was thinking. like the college of cardinals etc.
my dictionary probing gave me the impression that a college was a society in a certain discipline…college of surgeons etc brought together by a uni-versity …one group the focus of many within.
i went to college here in the uk but it was not a university and all we got were advanced technical qualifications which allowed us to go to university and sit further examinations for a degree.
oxford and cambridge have colleges which do not confer degrees.
cheers
Really ??
Colleges that do not confer degrees ??
that is just a simple step of school then…
3 a : a self-governing constituent body of a university offering living quarters and instruction but not granting degrees <Balliol and Magdalen Colleges at Oxford>
i think the degree is granted by the examining body and not the college faculty
the colleges i went to were technical colleges
some in later years became centres for advanced learnin cats
and were given degree invidulation and process
its been a long time since i sat in a classroom:)
As the quote posted by Quirm above indicates, the degrees awarded by the University of Cambridge are awarded by the university, not by the colleges into which it is divided. The same applies to Oxford University:
[quote]
Colleges and Halls:
[ul][li]select their own undergraduate students; [/li][li]provide accommodation, meals, common rooms, libraries, sports and social facilities and pastoral care for those students; [/li][li]are responsible for students’ tutorial teaching and welfare. [/ul][/li]The University
[ul][li]determines the content of the courses within which college teaching takes place; [/li][li]organises lectures and seminars; [/li][li]provides a wide range of resources for teaching and learning in the form of libraries, laboratories, museums, computing facilities, etc; [/li][li]selects and supervises graduate students, examines theses; [/li][li]sets and marks examinations; [/li][li]awards degrees.[/ul][/li][/quote]
[Rice hijack]
Lovett?!! Lovett sucks!!
[/Rice hijack]
Nice description of the Rice University college system, brad_d. For those interested, more info may be found here:
http://www.rice.edu/student/colleges.html
Non-Rice folks may not appreciate how much of undergraduate student life revolves around the residential colleges. When I was a student, it was invariably the first question asked of another student upon first meeting them.
Incidentally, just this year a ninth residential college opened at Rice, after a break of some thirty years from the establishment of the eighth, Sid Richardson College (Sid Rich), my own college.
Also of interest to the OP is the fact that Rice University changed its name from the Rice Institute in the 1960s. It is my understanding that Rice intended to emphasize its broader curriculum from that of the strict science/engineering it was then known for.
–robby
Sid Richardson College (overlooking Lovett)
Rice University
1991