Colleges and Universities

The British School System

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Making a choice

College vs university

College and  University

The difference between a college and a university is that a college just offers a collection of degrees in one specific area, while a university is a collection of colleges.

When you go to a university you are going to be graduating from one of their colleges, such as the business college. As to which is better, it depends on what you want.

Single colleges tend to be smaller while universities are bigger, but universities are better known. Be aware that there is a very distinct difference in terminology between the USA and the rest of the world.

In the US, there is very little difference academically between a "college" and a "university".

Universities are usually larger and often contain multiple "colleges" within them. However, some of the top-ranked schools in the US have a name including "college" (ex. Dartmouth College).

In other parts of the English-speaking world, the term "university" equates to the US use of "college" and the term "college" refers more to a trade or vocational school.

In the UK, a university can award its own degrees and has a charter giving it various guarantees of independence.

A college usually depends on a fully-fledged university validating its degrees, or may even be part of a university, as in Oxford or Cambridge colleges. Or a college may be little to do with degree-level education at all, such as a Further Education college. Community Colleges. In that usage a college is very different than a University because a community college can't offer a 4 year degree (ie a B.A. or a B.S.). Community colleges can offer trade and technical certifications and training as well as the first 2 years of a four year program but they are unable to grant bachelors degrees