What I meant (and, looking at it now, failed to explain) was that I didn't think there were circumstances in which someone would say "college" and mean "high school," or vice versa. They're not equivalent at all and I've never heard of anyone using one to mean the other before, which is why I was confused. College and uni involve the pursuit of a degree, high school does not.

I do understand how "college" and "university" can be used to mean the same thing.

~Neshomeh

I'm an American attending university in the UK, so I'll see if I can help . . .

In England, College can refer to a one- or two-year preparatory course for university instead or in addition to the last year/ two years of high school.

In some universities, such as Oxford, the universities are split up into colleges. These colleges are seperate and each have their own courses, and they can do absolutely everything -- except give degrees. Only universities can hand out degrees.

In other universities, such as St Andrews, there are one or two seperate colleges within the university. In St Andrews, St Mary's college is the School of Divinity. Again, although the college has its own administration, etc., it cannot hand out degrees -- only the university can do that. So in both Oxford and St Andrews, college is a semi-independent subsect of a university. Like in the USA, each state has its own government, but is ruled over by the federal government.

Hope that helps.

For example, I know that Ian and Lee have families, but given that they both had moved out of their homes and into an "adult" life- they've both graduated from college, for a start- it's not like they're really in a situation like some of the teenage agents. Still, given that they can't exactly tell their families what it is they do, a visit after a particularly bad mission with some major whumping (physical or otherwise)could turn out to have potential. Hmm...

Of course, I'm probably going to wait until I've got a few more missions written before even mentioning their families.