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From Citizendium, the Citizens' Compendium

A university is a type of institution that provides higher or tertiary education - that is, education beyond schooling - and serves as a place for experts in academic subjects to conduct research and scholarly exploration of an idea. Modern Western universities tend to be comprised of students taking courses that lead to degrees. First or undergraduate degrees are ones which lead to a Bachelor's award - afterwards students can carry on and do postgraduate study, which can lead to Master's degrees or conduct a significant amount of original research in their subject discipline which is awarded with a doctorate degree (often a Ph.D). The university has it's origin as a community of scholars (Latin: "universitas magistrorum et scholarium"), although current-day universities are usually large, government-funded entities employing hundreds or thousands of staff and teaching a wide number of courses.