Editing Collegiate university (section)

===Non-centralised teaching collegiate universities===
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|title=The two founding colleges of the federal [[University of London]]
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|File:Strand102.jpg
|[[King's College London]]
|File:UCL Portico Building.jpg
|[[University College London]]
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Sometimes, as noted above, referred to as ''federal universities'', these are universities where the teaching function is entirely carried out by constituent colleges, which will often have their own faculties and departments. This is represented by examples such as Oxford and Cambridge up to the mid 19th century, the University of Wales from 1893 to 2007, and the University of London from 1900. The level of legal separation &ndash; e.g. whether the colleges are separate corporate bodies &ndash; varies between universities. As the colleges are primarily teaching institutions, they may not always be residential communities and many are effectively universities in their own right.

Some colleges are part of loose federations that allow them to exercise nearly complete self-governance, and even (as in the case of colleges of the [[University of London]]) award their own degrees. Other colleges are not legally separate from their parent university, e.g. the [[University of the Arts, London]] (UAL) in the UK and many [[state university system]]s in the US. In some US state systems, a "[[Flagship#University|flagship campus]]" may be identified &ndash; often the original campus of the system &ndash; which is considered (either officially or informally) to stand above the other campuses in the system (e.g. [[University of Wisconsin–Madison]], [[University of Colorado Boulder]]).

Some universities may have centralised teaching but also have colleges that do not access that centralised teaching. Historically, this was the case at [[Durham University]] for the medical school and Armstrong College in the late 19th and early 20th century (prior to the formation of a true federal university in 1908) and for University College Stockton from 1994 to 2001. The two colleges of [[Queen's University Belfast]], which is for the main part a unitary university, currently operate in this manner. This should not be confused with the situation where courses at an independent college are validated by a university but the college does not become part of that university, e.g. the relationship between the [[New College of the Humanities]] and [[Southampton Solent University]] from 2015 to 2020.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/southampton-solent-validate-%C2%A318k-new-college-humanities-degrees|title=Southampton Solent to validate £18K New College of the Humanities degrees: A. C. Grayling's 'Oxbridge-style' private college strikes agreement with post-92 institution|work=[[Times Higher Education]]|date=30 July 2015|access-date=20 August 2017|archive-date=3 January 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220103143416/https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/southampton-solent-validate-%C2%A318k-new-college-humanities-degrees|url-status=dead}}</ref>

Over time, the level of federation may evolve, particularly as independent colleges grow and seek to establish themselves as universities in their own right. [[University College London]] and [[King's College London]] were for much of the 20th century dependent colleges of the central university, without separate legal identities, and all London colleges received funds through the University of London rather than directly. The trend since the latter half of the 20th century has been for increased decentralisation; taken to its ultimate, this has led some colleges to formally end their relations with the parent university to become degree-awarding universities. Examples include [[Cardiff University]] (formerly the [[University of Wales, Cardiff]]) and [[Imperial College London]] (formerly a college of the University of London). Similarly [[Newcastle University]] was part of the federal [[University of Durham]] until 1963 and the [[University of Dundee]] was a college of the [[University of St Andrews]] until 1967. A number of autonomous universities in [[South Africa]] were formerly colleges of the [[University of South Africa]]. Many of the US state systems started as single campuses but have evolved to become federal systems, and the [[University of the Philippines]] similarly started as one campus but is now a system of "constituent universities".