Universities in the United States

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In the United States, the term "university" refers to institutions of higher learning that offer a wide range of undergraduate and postgraduate degrees and conduct research in those fields.

Smaller institutions that offer only bachelor or associate's degrees usually are properly called "colleges." Some will offer one or two masters-level degrees and employ the word "university" in their names. These are, however, not universities in that they are principally undergraduate institutions and their faculties do not conduct significant research.

According to the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching's classifications, the United States has 284 universities among a total 4,386 post-secondary institutions. It is common in the U.S. to refer to both universities and colleges informally as "college" ; for example, one might say a student attends college at Vanderbilt University, even though Vanderbilt is formally a university. Furthermore, some institutions that are formally recognized as universities and offer the same range of degrees retain the word "college" in their name for historical or other reasons (e.g. Boston College).

1 Overview
2 Admissions
3 Finances
4 See also
5 External links

[edit] Overview

The American university system, like the American educational system in general, is highly decentralized because the U.S. Constitution's Tenth Amendment reserves all unenumerated powers (one of which is education) "for the States respectively, or to the people." Thus, except for the United States service academies, the federal government does not directly regulate universities. Such a degree of autonomy in higher education is rare.

American universities have developed independent accreditation agencies to vouch for the quality of the degrees they offer. The accreditation agencies rate universities and colleges on criteria such as the quality of their libraries, the publishing records of their faculty, and the degrees which their faculty hold. An institution that issues degrees without reputable accreditation may not be recognized as valid and is often referred to as a "diploma mill."

The United States has both public universities and private universities. Almost all public universities are supported by state governments. During the past decade state support for public universities has steadily declined as a percentage of overall funding, so that state universities have become more dependent on tuition and external fundraising.

American high school students have wide latitude in choosing their postsecondary institutions, and as a result they usually leave their hometown to go to college. Universities provide residence halls so students can live on campus.

[edit] Admissions

Prospective students are free to apply to any American college or university; there is no system for matching students with specific institutions. The selectivity of university admissions in the United States varies greatly. Standards range from extremely selective institutions, which are generally private, [1] to public universities with mandates to admit any high school graduate in the state.

Each university has its own admissions system. The most common criteria considered are:

Score on a standardized test, such as the ACT or SAT.
Class rank and grade-point average in high school.
Admissions essay
Extracurricular activities
Minority or underprivileged background. See also: affirmative action.
Legacy or donor status

[edit] Finances

Tuition is charged at all American universities. Students often use scholarships, student loans, or grants, rather than paying all tuition out-of-pocket. Public universities receive funding from individual states, and residents of the state that supports the university typically pay much lower tuition than non-residents. All competitive universities, public and private, have endowments to provide a steady, reliable source of funding. Harvard University's endowment is the largest of any educational institution at $29.2 billion.

The Bachelor of Science and the Bachelor of Arts, both requiring around four years of study, are the two most common undergraduate degrees awarded by universities in the United States.

Intercollegiate athletics, organized by the National Collegiate Athletics Association, are very popular and very competitive in the United States, especially college football.

According to Shanghai Jiao Tong University's Academic Ranking of World Universities, 17 of the top 20 scientific research universities in the world are in the United States. According to the Times Higher Education Supplement's world university rankings, 8 out of the top 11 universities in the world are in the United States. According to the Webometrics Ranking of World Universities 53 of the Top 100 universities in the world are in the United States.