College: Purpose, Structure, History, and Variations

In Canada and the United States, "college" is a colloquial collective term for institutions of tertiary education, particularly those of undergraduate study (associate's and bachelor's degrees). The higher education systems of both countries have many similarities, but also many differences.

Similarities between the two countries

The tertiary education sector in both countries includes both higher education institutions and vocational schools, although the latter are usually referred to colloquially as "trade schools" rather than "colleges".

The only generally valid evaluation system for the quality of a university, its teaching and graduates is the university ranking in the USA and Canada. For example, Harvard University in the USA and McGill University in Canada are both ranked number 1 (World's Best Universities) on average over many years.

First-year students are often referred to colloquially as freshmen, less informally as first-year students, sophomores, juniors, and seniors. The exception is the military academies, which use the terms plebes, yearlings, cows, and firsties instead or in addition.

United States

Community colleges are two-year schools in the United States that are funded by communities and offer the associate degree to local high school graduates, especially those on a budget. Many community college graduates then continue their studies at a regular four-year college to earn a bachelor's degree.

Canada

Canada has the highest proportion of graduates of any country in the world.

In Canada, unlike the US, virtually all colleges and universities are subject to a uniform government quality control system and most of them are members of the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada (AUCC), which is why the standard of Canadian universities is considered more uniform than that in the US.

The Canadian counterpart to the community college is the polytechnic college. Two- and three-year diploma programs are offered there.

In Great Britain and Ireland, the term college is used in a very differentiated way and refers to different institutions of the education system depending on the context:

• some private secondary schools (public schools) such as Eton College.
• secondary schools, known as Sixth Form Colleges, where students are aged around 16 to 18 and can gain an Advanced Level at these schools
• the individual components of some universities, such as Cambridge, Durham, Oxford or the University of London
• other institutions outside the traditional education system. These include university colleges, i.e. autonomous institutions of higher education independent of other universities, some of which have achieved university status, such as Imperial College London or University College Dublin.
• Schools that are economically-economically oriented, such as ADT College London.

Relationship between universities and colleges

For some universities, colleges form legally and economically independent units, so that such universities could also be called a federation of colleges. The degree of connection between the college and the associated university varies.

At the universities of Cambridge, Durham and Oxford, the colleges are responsible for the social and economic needs of the students and, with the provision of dining halls, student residences, common rooms, libraries or sports, they take on many tasks that in Germany are carried out by Studentenwerke, for example. In addition, they also take on parts of the academic supervision, for example through tutorials. The university itself, however, is responsible for the examinations and offers the lectures. The teaching is organized by the subject-specific faculties and institutes of the university, where students and teaching staff from different colleges come together. Admission to the university is always linked to admission to one of the colleges. The professors of the university are fellows in one of the colleges. They receive their professorial title from the university, and are usually paid by the college. The colleges often have traditional foci, but usually accept students in a variety of subjects - even those from which they do not have fellows - so that the student body at a college usually cuts across all disciplines. The fact that students in colleges are integrated into small social units and receive individual attention from tutors is regarded as an important element in their academic success. In addition to housing on the old college grounds, other buildings outside the college grounds are also used for residential purposes. Most classrooms, libraries, and laboratories are housed in the university's faculty buildings, although the colleges have their own libraries and classrooms to some extent. Conferences, for example, are held there. In addition to undergraduates, the college includes advanced students who already have a degree (graduates) and junior scholars (postgraduates). There are also visiting scholars who temporarily research and teach at a college as fellows. Until the 19th century, Fellows were not allowed to be married and formed a living community with the college members. Fellows and tutors are also traditionally called dons (from Latin dominus, lord), denoting the proverbial type of university scholar. Among the classic social institutions of the Colleges is the Hall meal, at which the members of the College are seated according to rank, with the Fellows seated on a dais raised a few steps at the High Table. Colleges also include clubs such as boat clubs, where rowing is a traditional sport.

In the case of the University of London, the autonomy of the colleges even goes so far that they can almost be regarded as independent universities. On the other hand, however, there are also some colleges at universities which take on the tasks described above, but are much less independent than shown for Oxford and Cambridge.

Particularly due to the economic independence of many colleges - they have their own employees, but also property - these are sometimes in a better economic position than the universities to which they belong.