As this site is about mathematics education, it seems that college and undergraduate-education are redundant and should be made synonymous.
Is it beneficial to have both college and undergraduate-education as distinct tags?
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$\begingroup$ I'm beware that I tagged some of my questions with this tag to emphasize that they are not related to school. I'm not completely known to the US system, but should there be an "university" tag or would that by a synomym of college? $\endgroup$– Markus KleinCommented Mar 18, 2014 at 22:36
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$\begingroup$ I could've sworn that this type of thing has been asked before and it was stated that it will become a non-issue once the Beta goes live through some tool. I don't recall exactly, but I believe Brian mentioned it. $\endgroup$– David GCommented Mar 19, 2014 at 3:20
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1$\begingroup$ @MarkusKlein In the US system, the term "university" usually refers specifically to an institution that offers both undergraduate and graduate degrees. $\endgroup$– Jim BelkCommented Mar 19, 2014 at 4:37
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1$\begingroup$ @DavidG It's possible to define tag synonyms as sonn as someone from the community has reached the privilege to do so (I guess in 1-2 days), but we have to decide if want to do so. $\endgroup$– Markus KleinCommented Mar 19, 2014 at 7:48
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3 Answers
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In view of this discussion I approved an existing suggestion to make college a synoym of undergraduate-education.
If somebody wishes to use college for a more specific purpose please let me know so that synonym can be cancelled.
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The college tag as it is currently used should be dropped.
Currently it is used to indicate (beginning) tertiary education, matching common informal usage in the US. Yet, already in other English speaking countries, as far as I understand, this does not really fit or could be ambigous.
I refer to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/College for an overview of other usages.
There is the extra issue that in other languages words similar to college exist with a different meaning, for example, in France "collège" is the standard name for the school for 11-15 year old.
If one wants a tag like it, I would recommend university A word similar to university with about the same meaning exists in many languages.
The tag undergraduate-education seems much better and more in line with the other tags of this type we have, also containing education.
(In theory there might be a place for college, or even more particular thing like liberal-arts-college for question specific to this type of institution. Yet, this is not at all the current usage and I think not the subject of the question.)
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4$\begingroup$ The "university" tag would not be compatible with American English, because liberal arts colleges are typically not referred to as universities. The "undergraduate-education" tag would work fine. Alternatively, what about "higher-education"? $\endgroup$– Jim BelkCommented Mar 19, 2014 at 4:35
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$\begingroup$ @JimBelk yes, that is why I did not recommend a university tag; I pointed out it would be relatively better as it should be wider understood what is the intent. Higher-education seems alright, but is a bit broad, and I if we have it this braod I would use rather tertiary-education (in line with primary, secondary). The advanatag of undergraduate-ed is that it more specific. $\endgroup$– quidCommented Mar 19, 2014 at 10:37
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I think that 'college' should be eliminated, as it is highly ambiguous, especially in an international context. 'undergraduate-education' is much better.
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$\begingroup$ How is "college" ambiguous in an international context? $\endgroup$– Jim BelkCommented Mar 18, 2014 at 22:22
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