Collegiate system, good or bad?

It's not exactly a fair comparison academically because it happens that some of the best universities in the country have a collegiate system and few of the less good ones do. Its also difficult because most people have been to one or the other and will be biased, so here is my biased view based on going to a collegiate university:

In first year you meet a similar amount of people in your college as most people at other unis seem to meet in halls. You then don't really meet dramatically more people throughout your time at uni except freshers joining your college, and obviously if you do uni-wide societies. I think this means you make better friends with people in your college, and have more of a community feel there, but fewer random friends. I found there was more academic support available to me in college than for my friends who didn't have colleges, but that is a product of my university system. I also really enjoy having college-level sports teams which aren't too serious, and create intercollegiate rivalry.

Not sure what you mean about them not being economical?

I've heard that collegiate systems are not economical, but they're more easy to socialise and make friends?
So is it a good system or not?
What is the difference between collegiate system and a normal one in terms of academic performance and socialisation?

So it's hard to meet friends from other colleges?
I've heard that it's more expensive to go to a collegiate system uni that a normal one?
Can you tell me which uni you've been to?


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I've heard that it's more expensive to go to a collegiate system uni that a normal one?

The Oxford and Cambridge collegiate systems are expensive to run but, but because the universities are fairly rich, the cost isn't passed on to the students.

Outside of societies and maybe lectures and people you knew before university, it's more common for people's friends to be from the same college, yeah. I have no idea why it would be more expensive to go to a collegiate university than others, I suppose if you're willing to count the University of London as a collegiate university then it's true, but not really otherwise ...

I'm currently at Cambridge. As far as I know, the collegiate universities are Cam, Oxford, Durham, York, Lancaster and Kent, none of which are particularly expensive places to live (though accomodation costs at some of the Durham colleges are surprisingly high).

Any reason why some of the Durham colleges have a high accommodation cost?


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