College vs. University — What's the Difference?

A college (Latin: collegium) is an educational institution or a constituent part of one. A college may be a degree-awarding tertiary educational institution, a part of a collegiate or federal university, an institution offering vocational education, or a secondary school.

A university (Latin: universitas, 'a whole') is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs.

An institution of higher learning that grants the bachelor's degree in liberal arts or science or both.

An institution for higher learning with teaching and research facilities typically including a graduate school and professional schools that award master's degrees and doctorates and an undergraduate division that awards bachelor's degrees.

An undergraduate division or school of a university offering courses and granting degrees in a particular field or group of fields.

The buildings and grounds of such an institution.

A junior or community college.

The body of students and faculty of such an institution.

A school offering special instruction in a professional or technical subject

Institution of higher education (typically accepting students from the age of about 17 or 18, depending on country, but in some exceptional cases able to take younger students) where subjects are studied and researched in depth and degrees are offered.

The students, faculty, and administration of one of these schools or institutions

The universe; the whole.

The building, buildings, or grounds where one of these schools or institutions is located

An association, society, guild, or corporation, esp. one capable of having and acquiring property.

Chiefly British A self-governing society of scholars for study or instruction, incorporated within a university.

An institution organized and incorporated for the purpose of imparting instruction, examining students, and otherwise promoting education in the higher branches of literature, science, art, etc., empowered to confer degrees in the several arts and faculties, as in theology, law, medicine, music, etc. A university may exist without having any college connected with it, or it may consist of but one college, or it may comprise an assemblage of colleges established in any place, with professors for instructing students in the sciences and other branches of learning. In modern usage, a university is expected to have both an undergraduate division, granting bachelor's degrees, and a graduate division, granting master's or doctoral degrees, but there are some exceptions. In addition, a modern university typically also supports research by its faculty

An institution for secondary education in France and certain other countries that is not supported by the state.

The body of faculty and students at a university

A body of persons having a common purpose or shared duties

Establishment where a seat of higher learning is housed, including administrative and living quarters as well as facilities for research and teaching

An electoral college.

A large and diverse institution of higher learning created to educate for life and for a profession and to grant degrees

A body of clerics living together on an endowment.

(obsolete) A corporate group; a group of colleagues.

(in some proper nouns) A group sharing common purposes or goals.

(politics) An electoral college.

An academic institution.

A specialized division of a university.

An institution of higher education teaching undergraduates.

A university.

(Canada) A postsecondary institution that offers vocational training and/or associate's degrees.

A non-specialized, semi-autonomous division of a university, with its own faculty, departments, library, etc.

(UK) An institution of further education at an intermediate level; sixth form.

(UK) An institution for adult education at a basic or intermediate level (teaching those of any age).

A high school or secondary school.

(Australia) A private (non-government) primary or high school.

(Australia) A residential hall associated with a university, possibly having its own tutors.

(Singapore) A government high school, short for junior college.

(in Chile) A bilingual school.

A collection, body, or society of persons engaged in common pursuits, or having common duties and interests, and sometimes, by charter, peculiar rights and privileges; as, a college of heralds; a college of electors; a college of bishops.

A society of scholars or friends of learning, incorporated for study or instruction, esp. in the higher branches of knowledge; as, the colleges of Oxford and Cambridge Universities, and many American colleges.

A building, or number of buildings, used by a college.

Fig.: A community.

The body of faculty and students of a college

An institution of higher education created to educate and grant degrees; often a part of a university

British slang for prison

A complex of buildings in which a college is housed