A
university is an institution of
higher education and of
research, which grants
academic degrees. A university provides both
tertiary and
quaternary education.
University is derived from the
Latin universitas, meaning
corporation (since the first medieval
European universities were often groups of scholars-for-hire).
History
Because of the above definition, the oldest universities in the world were all European, as the awarding of academic degrees was not a custom of older institutions of learning in
Asia and
Africa. However, institutions of higher learning considerably older than the most ancient European universities existed in countries such as
China,
Egypt and
India. Some of them are still in operation today.
The
Academy, founded in
387 BC by the
Greek philosopher
Plato in the grove of Academos near
Athens, taught its
students philosophy,
mathematics, and
gymnastics, and is sometimes considered a forerunner of modern European universities. Other Greek cities with notable educational institutions include
Kos (
Hippocrates' home), which had a medical school, and
Rhodes, which had philosophical schools. The most famous Ancient Greek "university" was the
Museum and Library of Alexandria.
About a thousand years after Plato, institutions bearing a resemblance to the modern university existed in
Persia and the
Islamic world, notably the
Academy of Gundishapur and later also Al Azhar university in
Cairo. One of the most important
Asian institutions resembling a university, next to the Persian Academy of Gundishapur, was
Nalanda, in
Bihar,
India, where the second century Buddhist
philosopher Nagarjuna was based.
In the
Carolingian period, a famous academy was created by
Charlemagne for the purpose of educating the children of aristocrats to help train the professionals needed to run an empire. It was a foreshadow of the rise of the University in the
11th century.
The first European medieval universities were established in
Bologna (
Italy) and
Paris (
France) in the Middle Ages for the study of
law,
medicine, and
theology.
In Europe young men proceeded to the university when they had completed the study of the
trivium: the preparatory arts of
grammar,
rhetoric, and
logic; and the
quadrivium:
arithmetic,
geometry,
music, and
astronomy. See
Degrees of Oxford University, §1 for the history of how the trivium and quadrivium developed in relation to degrees, especially in
anglophone universities.
Universities are generally established by
statute or
charter. In the
United Kingdom, for instance, a university is instituted by
Act of Parliament or
Royal Charter; in either case generally with the approval of
Privy Council, and only such
recognised bodies can award degrees of any kind.
In France, students can also attend
Grandes écoles, which are very prestigious and elitist schools, with small promotions—usually a couple hundred students—and very selective competitive exams at the entrance. There are Grandes écoles for literature, business, and engineering. Formation provided in these schools is usually of a better level than the corresponding one in French universities. The system of the Grandes écoles is particular to the French education system.
In the
United States, universities are usually treated by the law as a
corporation like any other, although many states impose special responsibilities to safeguard the welfare of a university's students. Because the
American federal government does not directly organize or regulate universities, informal systems of accreditation have been developed by regional networks of academic institutions. The vast majority of private and
public American universities are non-profit (meaning that excess tuition is plowed into providing higher quality of service), but starting in the
1970s, many for-profit
colleges and universities were founded to take advantage of certain changes in the federal student assistance programs.
In the late
19th century, the U.S. Congress encouraged the creation of many
land-grant universities.
In the last decades of the
20th century, a number of
mega universities have been created, teaching with
distance learning techniques.
Selective admissions
Unlike
community colleges, enrollment at a university is generally not available to all. However, systems of selecting admitted vary strongly across the world.
In English-speaking countries, prospective university students typically apply for admission through a selective (and frequently arduous) process during their last year of
high school or
community college. Universities have formed non-profit organizations (or arranged for the formation of government agencies) to centralize the administration of standardized admission exams and the processing of applications.
Such organizations include:
See also:
college admissions
By contrast, admission is administered differently elsewhere. For example, in
Germany, prospective students who have passed the
Abitur may decide freely what subjects to enroll in. However, in some popular subject fields such as
medicine or business administration, students have to pass a certain
numerus clausus, i.e. they need a minimum grade point average on their Abitur.
Austria probably has the most liberal system of university admission anywhere in the world, as anyone who has passed the
Matura may enroll in any subject field (or even several at no additional cost) at a public university. This has led to overcrowding and high
dropout rates in the more popular fields of study, and high failure rates at exams which are inofficially used to filter out the less able among students.
Colloquial usage
Colloquially, the term
university is used around the world for a phase in one's life: "when I was at university…"; in the United States,
college is often used: "when I was in college…". See
college, §3, for further discussion.
The usual practice in the United States today is to call an institution made up of several faculties and granting a range of higher degrees a "university" while a smaller institution only granting bachelor's or associate's degrees is called a "college". (See liberal arts colleges,
community college). Nevertheless, a few of America's oldest and most prestigious universities, such as
Boston College,
Dartmouth College and the
College of William and Mary, have retained the term "college" in their names for historical reasons though they offer a wide range of higher degrees.
See also
:
academia -
academic rank -
academy - admission - alumnus - aula -
Bologna process - business schools -
Grandes écoles -
campus -
college -
college and university rankings -
dean -
degree -
diploma -
discipline -
dissertation -
faculty -
fraternities and sororities -
graduate student -
graduation -
lecturer -
medieval university -
mega university -
perpetual student -
professor -
provost -
rector -
research -
scholar -
senioritis -
student -
tenure -
tuition -
universal access - university administration
External links
Category:Academia
Category:School types
ca:Universitat
cs:Universita
da:Universitet
de:Universität
el:Πανεπιστήμιο
es:Universidad
eo:Universitato
fr:Université
ga:Ollscoil
gl:Universidade
id:Universitas
it:Università
he:אוניברסיטה
la:Universitas
hu:Egyetem
nl:Universiteit
ja:大学
no:Universitet
pl:Uniwersytet
pt:Universidade
ru:Университет
simple:University
sk:Univerzita
sl:Univerza
fi:Yliopisto
sv:Universitet
tl:Unibersidad
zh:大学 (教育)