Word Usage: College vs. University?

Question

Can the words college and university be used interchangeably when talking about college in general? Or is there something that makes a university unique as opposed to it just being a college? Would it be wrong to call a school that has college in the title a university?

Answer 1

I believe that a university is made up of different colleges. Like, college of humanities at such-n-such university.

Answer 2

In England, it gets confusing, because college is where you go from when you're 16-18 to do A-Levels, and University is where you go when you're 18 to do your degree. Whereas in America, college is the same thing as university.

So, I think an American college, and a University are the same thing. But an English college and an English University aren't, and neither are an American college and an English college.

Answer 3

In there U.S. there are two main types of colleges (technically there are more, but they are not relevant for the purpose of this explanation). One is a Community College and the other is a State College. The difference between the two is that the highest degree that a Community College offers is an Associates, while a State College offers a Bachelor's Degree.

Now the difference between a State College and a University, besides the fact that most universities are made up of different colleges as Ranto explained, is that universities also offer Master's and Doctorate Degrees.

College and University are no used interchangeably here in the U.S; you either go to college or go to university.

Answer 4

In the US, College can mean a College or a University.  University is not generally used to describe a college.  In other countries, they are not used interchangeably.

In the US, a university is made up of several colleges (e.g., the College of Arts and Sciences, the College of Engineering, the College of Business, etc).  Liberal Arts colleges like Williams and Swarthmore usually only have one college (A&S) and usually do not grant graduate degrees.

Some universities retain the name "Collge" for historical reasons.  For example, Boston College is a university.  But the name Boston University was already taken.