In United States one will find full-fledged universities having a number of colleges in different streams within its campus or periphery and also such colleges and universities that are stand alone. In fact these stand alone universities are made of only one college and may be a few schools.

Purdue University is one that has multiple colleges with divergent streams under its jurisdiction. It is the example of multiple college university. On the other hand there are single college university like the Brown University where there is only one college for the undergraduates and two schools. Among these two one is the Graduate School meant for students that wants to pursue post graduation, and the Medical School, preparing students to become doctors in future.

Another stand alone institution is the Dartmouth College that is also organized in the pattern following that of the Brown University. Undergraduates are enrolled in Dartmouth College directly and post graduate students enroll in the three schools under the college. These schools are the Tuck School of Business, Dartmouth Medical School and the Thayer School of Engineering.

On the other extreme are colleges such as the Carleton College that is an entirely undergraduate college for the liberal arts. The institute comprises of only one college imparting education in arts, natural science, physical science, and languages. While in truth it is an university, it is one of “colleges” as it is understood in the United States.

Difference of Carleton College from others is that it does not confer any graduation degrees and has no schools that would focus on non-liberal-arts. It however has an academic sector that is composed of related departments sharing common philosophy of liberal arts and education. Students from the college only earn the undergraduate degrees.