Associate degree in the context of "Community colleges in the United States"

A college (Latin: collegium) may be a tertiary educational institution (sometimes awarding degrees), part of a collegiate university, an institution offering vocational education, a further education institution, or a secondary school.

In most of the world, a college may be a high school or secondary school, a college of further education, a training institution that awards trade qualifications, a higher-education provider that does not have university status (often without its own degree-awarding powers), or a constituent part of a university. In the United States, a college may offer undergraduate programs – either as an independent institution or as the undergraduate program of a university – or it may be a residential college of a university or a community college, referring to (primarily public) higher education institutions that aim to provide affordable and accessible education, usually limited to two-year associate degrees. The word "college" is generally also used as a synonym for a university in the US, and as used in phrases such as "college students" and "going to college" it is understood to mean any degree granting institution, whether denominated a school, an institute, a college, or a university.

An academic degree is a qualification awarded to a student upon successful completion of a course of study in higher education, usually at a college or university. Academic degrees are commonly structured in levels, most often categorized as undergraduate and postgraduate degrees.

The most common undergraduate qualification is the bachelor's degree, although some educational systems also offer lower-level degrees such as the associate degree or the foundation degree. Postgraduate degrees include the engineer's degree, the master's degree, and the doctorate.

An undergraduate degree (also called a first degree or simply a degree) is an academic degree awarded to a student who has completed an undergraduate program of study. In the United States, undergraduate degrees are typically offered at institutions of higher education such as colleges and universities. The most common types are the associate degree and the bachelor's degree, with the latter usually requiring at least three to four years of full-time study to complete.

In other higher education systems, the scope of undergraduate education may extend up to the level of a master's degree. This structure is found, for example, in certain science courses in the United Kingdom and in some long-cycle medicine programs in continental Europe. Such qualifications are sometimes categorized as basic academic degrees or as first professional degrees.

University of Applied Sciences Leiden (abbreviated as UAS Leiden; Dutch: Hogeschool Leiden), is a vocational university in the western Netherlands, located in the city of Leiden. It currently has approximately 12,000 students, mainly studying towards associate and bachelor's degrees. The school also offers master's degrees in nursing and physical therapy.

Drama school, acting school and theatre school is an undergraduate and/or graduate school or department at a college or university, or a free-standing institution (such as the drama section at the Juilliard School) that specializes in the pre-professional training in drama and "theatre" arts, such as acting, design and technical theatre, arts administration, and related subjects. If the drama school is part of a degree-granting institution, undergraduates typically take an associate degree, Bachelor of Arts, Bachelor of Fine Arts, or, occasionally, Bachelor of Science or Bachelor of Design. Graduate students may take a Master of Arts, Master of Acting, Master of Science, Master of Fine Arts, Doctor of Arts, Doctor of Fine Arts, or Doctor of Philosophy degree.

A junior college is a type of post-secondary institution that offers vocational and academic training that is designed to prepare students for either skilled trades and technical occupations or support roles in professions such as engineering, accountancy, business administration, nursing, medicine, architecture, and criminology. Often times, those types of colleges offer two-year associate's degrees that are intended for students that want to later transfer to a college for a four-year bachelor's degree to finish their undergraduate education, pending adequate grades. Students typically attend those types of colleges for one to three years, which is also dependent on the country.