What is the difference between a 4 years college and a university?

Answer 1

A four year college offers classes that lead to a two-year Associate degree or a four-year Bachelor degree. Often the subject areas are limited to broad based areas. For example, you may get a degree in Biology with a minor in education to allow you to teach at the elementary or secondary school level, but not have access to courses for a degree in botany, zoology, palynology (pollen), premedicine, preveterinary, etc. to allow teaching at community colleges or to pursue advanced degrees. Many, perhaps most, started as Community Colleges, and progressed to four year colleges from popular demand. A large number of the four year colleges have agreements with nearby universities for full transfer of credits for advanced studies.

A university is usually a collection of unrelated colleges under a single administration, i.e., College of Medicine, College of Home Economics, College of Criminal Justice, College of Math and Science, and College of Fine Arts. These allow students many combinations of studies, such as biology and criminal justice for employment in forensics; or agriculture and chemistry for work in developing fertilizers and herbicides. Each of the colleges offer advanced work for Master's degrees and possibly Doctoral degrees within that discipline. The colleges within the university attract highly respected experts, with most of those who teach graduate students having doctoral degrees. Facilities tend to be more extensive, with access to grants and donors far beyond the four year college. Scholarships generally are larger, longer term and more varied than at the smaller schools.

Answer 2

Typically, universities have schools within it (a collection of colleges), where colleges do not. For example, a university might have a school of business, school of engineering, maybe a law school, or medical school etc. Thus, a college offers education in one specific area. When you attend a university you attend one of their colleges. In addition, universities tend to be research focused, which means more PhD research requirements.