United Kingdom

British usage of the word "college" remains the loosest, encompassing a range of institutions:

· Colleges of further education and adult education.

· "Sixth form colleges", where students study for “A” Levels, and some specialist schools

· The constituent parts of collegiate universities, especially referring to the independent colleges of that make up the Universities of Oxford, Cambridge, St Andrews, Durham and London.

· The non-independent constituent parts of collegiate universities such as Kent, Lancaster and York.

· Universities, such as Imperial College London (officially a university) and University College London and King’s College London (which are universities de facto).

· A name given to large groupings of faculties or departments, notably in the University of Edinburgh, and possibly the University of Birmingham under restructuring plans.

· University colleges — independent higher education institutions that have been granted degree-awarding powers but not university status.

· Certain private schools (also known as "Public" schools in England) for children such as Eton and Winchester.

· Professional associations such as the Royal College of Organists, the Royal College of Surgeons and other various Royal Colleges.

· The College of Justice or Court of Session of Scotland

In general use, a "college" is an institution between secondary school and university, a college of further education and adult education. These institutions were usually called technical colleges, or tech. Recently, however, with the differences in functionality between universities and colleges becoming less clear-cut, and with the phasing out of polytechnical colleges, many people are starting to call such institutions "universities". Many types of institutions have "college" in their names but are not colleges in the general use of the word; Eton College, for example, would be called not a college, but a school, or by its full name.

In relation to universities, the term college normally refers to a part of the university which does not have degree-awarding powers in itself. Degrees are always awarded by universities, colleges are institutions or organisations which prepare students for the degree. In some cases, colleges prepare students for the degree of a university of which the college is a part (e.g. colleges of the University of London, University of Cambridge, etc.) and in some cases colleges are independent institutions which prepare students to sit as external candidates at other universities (e.g. many higher education colleges prepare students to sit for external examinations of universities). In the past, many of what are now universities with their own degree-awarding powers were colleges which had their degrees awarded by either a federal university (eg Cardiff University) or another university (e.g. many of the post-1992 universities).

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