What's the difference between a college and university?

Answer 1

A College is a school primarily for undergraduate programs.
University means there are undergraduate and graduate programs.
Boston College started as only undergrad and when they added the graduate programs they couldn't change the name because Boston University already existed.
Dartmouth College is technically a university, but they sued to keep the name college since they focus primarily on the undergrads.

Answer 2

Generally, in the US, the terms are somewhat interchangeable. For example, you have Boston College and Boston University. Both are pretty much universities as I understand them to be.

I went to the University of Delaware for my undergrad degree. At UD, I was in the college of engineering. We also had the college of arts & science, college of agriculture, college of nursing, college of education, etc.

I think to be very specific, a college is supposed to concentrate on one bit of subject matter.

So generally, a university is comprised of many colleges.

But you can still say "I'm going to college" or "I'm going to a university" pretty interchangeably.

Answer 3

Colleges are normally considered 2 year schools and universities four years.

Answer 4

College: an institution of higher learning, esp. one providing a general or liberal arts education rather than technical or professional training

University: an institution of learning of the highest level, having a college of liberal arts and a program of graduate studies together with several professional schools, as of theology, law, medicine, and engineering, and authorized to confer both undergraduate and graduate degrees.

Universities have professional schools, colleges don't.

Answer 5

I always thought that universities were considered to be larger.