A university is a higher learning institution. The word university comes from the Latin universitas magistrorum et scholarium, roughly meaning "community of teachers and scholars".  Students can go to university to get an academic degree. Unlike the schooling they have done before, the courses at university are specialised. A person studying biology at university has many courses about biology and fewer courses in other fields such as languages or history. To get a higher degree, people must do some research.

Not all subjects are offered at universities. Mainly, universities offer courses which are about knowledge. They usually do not offer courses in practical trades. In some cases such as law, where there are both knowledge and practical issues, the university does mainly the theoretical side of the subject. Practical qualifications are done elsewhere.

History 

The universities were born in Europe during the Middle Ages. The first institution of this type was the University of Bologna, which later became a model for other centres of education.

At first, the universities had formed themselves according to the model of the professional groups and like almost everything in the Middle Ages, they remained tied to the Catholic Church. At the beginning, they had worked to teach the so-called "seven liberal arts" (the trivium and the quadrivium):
 Trivium: grammar, logic and rhetoric.
 Quadrivium: arithmetic and geometry, astronomy and music.
That earliest division caused the present divisions between literary and scientific fields. From one point of view, the world's oldest university is Qarawiyyin university. However, teaching religion is not the definition used by most people. A university should in theory teach every subject.

The university is generally regarded as a formal institution that has its origin in the Medieval Christian tradition. European higher education took place for hundreds of years in cathedral schools or monastic schools (scholae monasticae). There, monks and nuns taught classes: evidence of these dates back to the 6th century. 

The Universities of Paris and Oxford were founded by members of the church. Later universities were founded by kings. 

In the early medieval period, most new universities were founded from pre-existing schools, usually when these schools became mainly sites of higher education. Pope Gregory VII promoted the concept of modern university as his 1079 Papal Decree. He ordered the establishment of cathedral schools, which eventually turned into the first European universities.

Organisation 
A university can include several campuses or different places where classes are taught by professors. In each campus there are several faculties and university schools (mainly for teaching), and also laboratories, departments and institutes of research. Many campuses also have housing for students in buildings called dormitories and structures like libraries, study rooms and gymnasiums for students that live there. Each school offers many courses that students take to earn a degree. The person with the highest right to control and to command in a university is the rector, who governs the university with the help of the party of vice-rectors and of other organs such as the social council and the governing body.

Notable universities

Australia
 The Australian National University
 University of Melbourne
 Deakin University
 University of New South Wales

Canada
 Carleton University
 McGill University
 McMaster University
 Queen's University
 University of British Columbia
 University of New Brunswick
 University of Ottawa
 University of Toronto
 University of Waterloo
 University of Western Ontario

Chile
 University of Chile (Universidad de Chile)
 Catholic University of Chile (Universidad Católica de Chile)
 Metropolitan Technologic University (Universidad Tecnológica Metropolitana)

China
 Peking University
 Tsinghua University
 University of Hong Kong

Finland
 Åbo Akademi University
 Aalto University
 University of Helsinki

Germany
 Free University of Berlin
 Goethe University Frankfurt
 University of Tübingen

Italy
 University of Bologna

Japan
 University of Tokyo
 University of Kyoto
 Waseda University
 University of Osaka

Malaysia
 University of Malaya
 Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman

Mexico
 UNAM, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. The biggest and most important university in Mexico and Latin America
 UdG, University of Guadalajara.It is the second oldest university in Mexico, regarded as one of the most significant universities in Mexico.
 IPN, Instituto Politécnico Nacional
 ITESM, Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey
 ITAM, Instituto Tecnoloógico Autónomo de México

Netherlands
 Delft University of Technology
 Eindhoven University of Technology
 Erasmus University Rotterdam
 Free University Amsterdam
 Leiden University
 Maastricht University
 Nyenrode Business University
 Open University of the Netherlands
 Radboud University Nijmegen
 Tilburg University
 University of Amsterdam
 University of Groningen
 University of Twente
 Utrecht University
 Wageningen University & Research

Poland
 University of Warsaw
 Jagiellonian University

Romania
 Naval Academy "Mircea cel Batran" (ANMB)

South Korea
 Seoul National University
 Yonsei University
 Korea University

Sweden
 Chalmers University
 Karolinska Institute
 Lund University
 Royal Institute of Technology
 Stockholm School of Economics
 Uppsala University
 Umeå University

Turkey
 Galatasaray University (İstanbul)

United Kingdom

 University of Aberdeen
 Aston University
 University of Birmingham
 University of Bristol
 Queens University, Belfast
 University of Cambridge
 Coventry University
 University of Dundee
 Durham University
 University of Edinburgh
 University of Exeter
 University of Glasgow
 University of Leeds
 University of London
 King's College London
 University College London
 University of Manchester
 Open University
 University of Oxford
 University of St Andrews
 University of Wales

United States
There is a group of famous universities called the Ivy League. They are:
 Harvard University
 Princeton University
 Yale University
 Brown University
 Cornell University
 Dartmouth College
 Columbia University
 University of Pennsylvania

Some other famous universities are:
 California Institute of Technology
 Duke University
 Massachusetts Institute Of Technology
 Stanford University
 University of Chicago
 Georgetown University
 University of California, Berkeley
 Ohio State University
 Illinois State University

Related pages
 College
 Education
 Higher education
 Laboratory
 Public university

References

Other websites 
 History of the Universities