A university college is a federated or affiliated academic university institution of a larger public university (often referred to as the "parent" campus). Federated and affiliated colleges have existed in Ontario, Canada, for over a century.^[1] The establishment of these institutions came from Christian religious groups. There are a total of 16 such university colleges in Ontario.

University colleges share a number of characteristics:

• Focus on undergraduate studies in the liberal arts and post-degree professional programs in the helping professions (i.e. social work, teaching, etc.)
• Experiential learning opportunities and student life rooted in altruism and social justice
• Residence for students who wish to live on campus
• A smaller campus community within a greater campus community (this experience is often advertised as the "best of both worlds")
• Small class sizes
• Student services and resources exclusively for those students for whom the university college is their home campus, referred to as "co-registration" due to simultaneous access to services of parent campus

"Affiliated" and "federated" are often used interchangeably when describing a university college, but they have somewhat different legal relationship with the parent campus. For example, affiliated university colleges typically suspend their degree-granting powers so their students are able to officially earn their degree from the “parent” institution. ^[2] A federated university college differs in that, although it is a type of affiliation, it is where "two or more institutions come together to create a new university that is recognized by civic authorities and is eligible for government funding" (MacDonald, 2016).^[3]