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A college (Latin: collegium) is a kind of higher education or a part of one. A college can be a degree-granting higher educational institution, a division of a collegiate or federal university, a vocational school, or a high school.

A college can be a high school, a college of further education, a training institution that awards trade credentials, a higher-education provider that does not have university status (sometimes without its degree-awarding powers), or a part of a university in most parts of the globe. A college in the United States offers undergraduate studies; it may be autonomous or part of a university’s undergraduate program; it is sometimes used as a synonym for a university. In some cases, a college may also be a residential institution. Secondary education is provided by a college in francophone nations such as France, Belgium, and Switzerland. The Collège de France, on the other hand, is a famous advanced research institute in Paris.

The term “college” comes from the Latin verbs lego, legere, legi, lectum, which mean “to collect, bring together, pick,” and cum, which means “with.” As a result, “colleagues” literally means “those who have been chosen to work together.” A collegium was a “body; guild, corporation joined in colleagueship; of magistrates, praetors, tribunes, priests, augurs; a political club or trade guild; a political club or trade guild” in ancient Rome. Therefore, a college was a type of corporation or corporate body, an artificial legal person (body/corpus) with its own legal personality, the ability to enter into legal contracts, and the capacity to sue and be sued.

Colleges of priests existed in mediaeval England, for example in chantry chapels; modern survivors include the Royal College of Surgeons in England (originally the Guild of Surgeons Within the City of London), the College of Arms in London (a body of heralds enforcing heraldic law), an electoral college (to elect representatives), and so on, all of which are groups of people “selected in common” to perform a specific task.

For example, Eton College was founded in 1440 by King Henry VI’s letters patent for the constitution of a college of Fellows, priests, clerks, choristers, poor scholars, and old poor men, with one master or governor, whose duty it shall be to instruct these scholars and any others who may resort thither from any part of that country.

A liberal arts college, such as Williams College or Amherst College, is an autonomous institution of higher education that focuses on undergraduate education.

The Yuanpei College of Peking University is a liberal arts section of a university whose undergraduate curriculum does not generally follow a liberal arts structure.

College is occasionally, but rarely, a synonym for a research institution in the United States, such as Dartmouth College, one of the eight Ivy League universities.

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