What is the difference between colleges and cal states ???

Question

I'm an international student who just came to US for a year. Some of my senior friends are studying in Cal states, but I'm not sure the difference between cal state system and college system.

Thank you. I appreciate your help.

Answer 1

College System? Do you mean the UC System?

California has several different systems of public colleges and universities. The UC system (University of California) is made up of several prestigious research universities -- including UC-Berkeley, UCLA and UC-Davis. All are very selective and are among the best universities in the US.

The Cal State system (CSU) is a collegtion of colleges that are not research centers and are not particularly selective. One can get a decent education at the CSU schools -- but they are not prestigious nor are they among the top universities.

California also has a system of community colleges -- which are two year schools that feed into the other universities.

Answer 2

Cal States ARE colleges - it stands for California State University, and there are 23 separate universities within that system. California also has another system, which is the University of California system, and there are 10 of those universities. The major difference is that the University of California campuses (UCLA, Berkeley, Irvine, etc.) were established to be research universities, with a large focus on graduate degrees, while the California State Universities are what are now called "balanced" universities (they used to be primarily teaching universities, but now some research goes on there too), which are more concerned with preparing the masses of students for the work force. In addition to these two public systems, the third public system are the community colleges, which are two-year colleges combining vocational education and preparatory courses for those who plan to transfer to the other universities for their final two years. Also, California has a number of private universities. So "Cal States" are part of a much larger environment of universities and colleges.

Answer 3

Cal State is short for California State University. Cal State is a college each college has different requirements for majors perhaps your friends at Cal State are discussing the system needed to graduate in their given majors.

Answer 4

I agree with everyone. I attend Cal State San Bernardino. However, the college of my major within Cal State is the College of Nursing. Basically a college is just a department within a University. Cal State is a University. Hope this helps.

Answer 5

There are two public university systems in California: University of California (UC) and Cal States. The former emphasize more basic research while cal states offer more practical majors such as nursing and business. However, every colleges in the system offer majors from biology, art, music, history, engineering, etc

Answer 6

Cal State IS a college...