Colleges and Universities can be either public or private (ie. Georgetown University and George Mason). Harvard is a private institution that is exceptionally large. 2 year institutions are usually community colleges and not "full colleges" although some universities have various graduate level certificates that take between 1 and 2 years to attain. Most master's level programs take between 2 and 3 years to complete and most doctoral programs (not medical programs, those are typically professional, not academic degrees) take another 3-4 years beyond the MA/MS level.siciliano732 wrote:
student body population and whether or not it is state funded or not. i think thats what the difference is. (dont quote me on it cuz im not definite.) A University is usually state funded and has a larger student body. Neither is better or worse than the other. I do know it has nothing to do with being a 2 or 4 year institution.Smithereener wrote:
I'm not quite sure about this, but: A college is actually a group of people, but now it's connotative meaning is a an institution of education although most people tend to think college is 2 year.nonexistentusmc wrote:
What exactly is the difference between a College or a University?
University is also an institution of higher learning, but most people assume 4-year.
I don't really think there is a difference, but most people I talk to group "college" with junior colleges.
I've got one year of high school left ahead of me. Getting like, 10 college letters a friggen week. Half of them I haven't even heard of.
Colleges typically don't grant certain graduate degrees (they usually don't grant doctorates, some do, but many only grant baccalaureate and/or master's degrees) or are component institutions within a University system (ie. Brooklyn College is within the City University of New York system). If a college is an independent institution (at least in the US) it is primarily focused on teaching, whereas Universities (again, in the US) are typically what is known as "knowledge generating" institutions and are primarily focused on research. So a professor at a college will be required to spend most of his or her time teaching undergraduates and/or graduate students while a university counterpart will spend most of his or her time conducting research.
For most faculty at research one institutions (those knowledge generating institutions) their promotions are contingent on the research they produce and not necessarily on teaching skills.
For the record I went to the University of Kansas and George Mason University.
Last edited by Masques (2007-02-25 23:05:54)