Swimmers difference between intercollegiate and club at university?

Question

what is the difference?

Answer 1

I'm not an expert, but this is how I understand the difference:

If you are in the US -- "Intercollegiate" means the university's athletic department supports the team. The sport is subject to  NCAA rules and other regulating bodies. Scholarships may be available. Title 9 requires that athletic opportunities provided for women equal those for men. In some cases, that means that the university "drops" a men's sport -- and it either goes away or morphs into a club sport. The university is usually associated with an athletic conference, and the conference agrees to which sports will have conference (or league) competition.  

"Club" sports may be associated by the university, but aren't under the control of the athletic department. Club sports don't participate in the university's athletic conference competition. Depending on the sport, club sports can have a parallel structure of competition that is just as rigorous as that of school sports. Club sports sometimes use university property for practices and competitions, but not always. Club sports might get financial assistance from the university, but usually have much smaller budgets.

Depending on the sport, "club" sports compete against other schools. "Intramurals" are competitions within the university population. These are usually are not as competitive as "club" activities.

For the most part, if a sport is popular and has a strong national program (like basketball or swimming), then a club program would be on a lower tier and not as competitive. If a sport is not as popular, or is only regionally popular (like lacrosse or field hockey), a club program can be just as competitive (or more so) than a program sponsored by the college.

Several universities and colleges have dropped their men's swimming programs. If the men's swimming program lives on in "club" status, that means students can continue to train and compete, but the university doesn't provide athletic scholarships or send a team to conference and national competitions.

Answer 2

Intercoolegiate is competitive and club isn't. Basically you'd join club in order to stay in shape.

But as for the competitions I'm not sure, I used to think that it was just people who didn't make the varsity teams but now I think it might be between colleges in the university since a university has multiple branches while a college doesn't. But either way intercollegiate is competitive, club is just for fun and to stay in shape.