College (Canada)

These are post-secondary institutions granting apprenticeships, citations, certificates, diplomas, and associate's degrees.

Canadians, on the other hand, use the term university to exclusively mean the pursuit of undergraduate and graduate post-secondary studies.

In Ontario and Alberta, and formerly in British Columbia, there are also institutions which are designated university colleges, as they only grant undergraduate degrees.

Instead the word CEGEP has become the more common term, although collégial remains the preferred adjectival form.

A CEGEP is a public college in the Quebec education system, offering either a two-year diploma, which allows one to continue on to university (unless one applies as a 'mature' student, meaning 21 years of age or over, and out of the educational system for at least two years), or a three-year diploma in a variety of trades and technologies (e.g. nursing, mechanical engineering or computer science).

Occasionally, "college" may also refer to a subject specific faculty within a university that, and while academically distinct, do not operate in an autonomous manner as federated or affiliated.

A number of post-secondary art schools in Canada formerly used the word college in their names, despite formally being universities, and having the authority to issue postgraduate degrees.

However, most of these institutions were renamed or re-branded in the early 21st century, dropping the word college in favour of university.

However, unlike NSCAD, or OCAD, it did not have the authority to grant postgraduate degrees, making its academic offerings akin to the standard definition of college in Canada.