http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/College
By contrast to British usage, in American English the term "college" is generally reserved for institutions of higher education, which are often totally independent and fully empowered to grant degrees. 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 the USA's most prominent universities, such as Boston College, Dartmouth College, and 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. This problem led, in part, to the threatened lawsuit between Yale College Wrexham (equivalent to an American "high school") and Yale University, the latter claiming trademark infringement.
Usage of the terms varies among the states, each of which operates its own institutions and licenses private ones. In 1996 for example, Georgia changed all of its four-year colleges to universities, and all of its vocational technology schools to technical colleges. (Previously, only the four research institutions were called universities.) Other states have changed the names of individual colleges, many having started as a teachers' college or vocational school (such as an A&M — an agricultural and mechanical school) that ended up as a full-fledged state university.
It should be noted, too, that "university" and "college" do not exhaust all possible titles for an American institution of higher education. Other options include "institute", "academy", "union," and "school" as in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, Cooper Union, or the Juilliard School.
The term college is also, as in Britain, used for a constituent semi-autonomous part of a larger university but generally organized on academic rather than residential lines. For example, at many institutions, the undergraduate portion of the university can be briefly referred to as the college (such as The College at Brown, Harvard College at Harvard, or Columbia College at Columbia) while at others each of the faculties may be called a "college" (the "college of engineering", the "college of nursing", and so forth). Some American universities, such as Princeton, Yale, and Rice do have residential colleges along the lines of Oxford or Cambridge, but the name was clearly adopted in homage to the British system. Unlike the Oxbridge colleges, these residential colleges are not autonomous legal entities nor are they typically much involved in education itself, being primarily concerned with room, board, and social life. At the University of California, San Diego, however, each of the six residential colleges does teach its own core writing courses and has its own distinctive set of graduation requirements.
Все таки мне кажется что в той статистике про миллионеров имелось в виду что они в 80% случаев имеют степень не ниже бакалавра. А еще мне кажется в Америке нет единых стандартов что как называть, так как в большинстве случаев учебные заведения частные
А насчет 30% тех кто по специальности не работал - еще проблема в том многие учат то что изначально исключает возможность найти работу по специальности, так у меня есть знакомые которые в Чехии изучали специальность Социальная антропология, или выпускники философского факультета МГУ например или выпускники мехмата или выпускники почвоеды - какая работа по специальности им светит?
) И он не пойдет со мной к моим подругам или на концерт группы, которая ему не нравится. Имхо, это нормально. Есть что-то, что объединяет и ещё что-то своё.
