well a university is a type of college. we dont want to associate all the community colleges on the same level as proper high learning XD
We use college as a term at some universities in Britain.
It all derives from Oxford University, the oldest university in Britain (if not oldest active in the world?), where the university runs as a whole, but there are distinct Colleges, or schools, that make up the university.
At universities like Oxford and Cambridge you get multiple colleges, so you not only describe yourself as going to that particular uni, but a specific college too.
But a lot of modern UK uni's don't have different colleges, so it's fair to just call it a university.
The same is also true of a number of US unis, but it's one of those quirks of English language that the Americans and British use two different words for the same thing, but both words make sense and have legitimate history.
In the UK however a lot of our colleges of further education are named such because they were originally designed as places of education for adults and the working classes. Night schools often developed into them and so did many polytechnics, schools for professional skills like Carpentry and Engineering rather than humanities and sciences.
"College" distinguished these places from schools for children and universities of higher education. And many colleges, which are strictly speaking a collection of schools and similar groups, were created out of numerous small adult schools and academies.
When compulsory education came in further education was required to give further qualifications to students and help select students for university, rather than just basing it off of money and nepotism. Further education was done in secondary schools, where they became Sixth Forms, but in places where schools couldn't expand they set up seperately to form Colleges of further education.
So our colleges (allowing that these terms vary across the UK as in some locations High School is used instead, particularly in Northern Ireland I'm led to believe) are essentially High Schools, community colleges, polytechnics, adult schools, night schools and academies all rolled into one. Some, including the one I study at, even provide foundation degrees, which are roughly 2/3rds of a bachelor's degree. You do 2 years at college, where you normally live close by so living costs are low and easy for local adults with families and jobs, and then you can optionally choose to continue for a 3rd year at an actual university and recieve a full bachelo's degree.
Or at least, that's my understanding of it. When it comes down to it a lot of places are able to label themselves whatever they want.
Some secondary schools with no further education still label themselves as colleges, when there's nothing to distinguish themselves from a regular secondary school. College is often just a fashionable word that seems more prestigious and intellectual than "school".
