Open college

We regard an open college as similar to an open university except that the majority of its provision is focussed on post-secondary courses below the level of higher education.

Thus an open college is any college with an open admissions policy - in other words, anyone can apply and get accepted for a course, irrespective of the qualifications they hold. However, a truly open admissions policy can lead to horrendous costs of teaching, very high levels of student drop-out and severe dissatisfaction from students, parents, employers and government - thus in practice some restrictions are imposed.

In practice, the term "open college" is applied mainly to those colleges who teach mostly at a distance and have a more or less open admissions policy (some much more open than others).

In our wiki, the vast majority of institutions with "Open College" in their name will be categorised by us as Open colleges.

We have always given open universities the benefit of the doubt and assumed that they were "virtual" institutions in an e-learning sense. This cannot be said to be the case for open colleges - and even less for open schools.

Mixed open colleges and open universities

In practice, many institutions categorised by us (and the world) as "open universities" have "open college" aspects to them as well. Particular examples include the Open University UK and the Open Polytechnic of New Zealand - but there are many others.

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