Skip to main content
university extension

university extension

1 4.1
A program from a college or university that offers courses for people who are not regular students
  • noun
  • /ˌjuːnɪˈvɜːrsɪti ɪkˈstɛnʃən/
translation icon : programa de extensión universitaria
  • The university extension provides various evening classes for adult learners who want to further their education.
  • university extension courses
  • university extension services

Examples

  • A lot of people get their MBAs at our tiny state university extension.

    Blog text (25)
  • In addition, there was a roster of university extension courses that many a modern college might well envy.

    Academic text (1990)
  • These same practices were followed by university extension divisions as they moved into online education.

    Blog text (4)
  • For local info, contact your university extension office, also known as the 4-H office.

    Blog text (2)
  • The growth of university extension services after World War I contributed to Chautauqua's inability to sustain its educational role in the communities it served.

    Academic text (2001)
  • Myron also taught a university extension class on modern art and had access to educational grants and residencies.

    Fiction book (2001)
  • Two of the four graduated from college, and a third, at age twenty-six, had recently announced that he was taking university extension courses as a sort of trial run.

    Fiction book (1990)
  • During National Family Caregivers Month in November and throughout the year, Iowa State University Extension and Outreach programs help empower family caregivers of older adults to take better care of themselves.

    Blog text (15)
  • Michigan State University Extension and Michigan Sea Grant have teamed up to lead an effort to alert people to the risks of rip currents and the remarkably straightforward way to respond if someone ever finds themselves being pulled away from shore by a current.

    Blog text (10)
  • One is not surprised to find that most of the students attending the university extension courses were, as the economics teacher reported, the "best sort" of workers, "steady, thrifty, interested in the improvement of their order"; or that the Latin and Greek students were mainly clerks or small tradesmen, although one was a foreman at the docks.

    Academic text (1990)

Synonyms

extension course
vsuniversity extension
1 3.7

A course offered by a college for adults, often in the evenings

covers a broader program of public education rather than one class
extension service
vsuniversity extension
1 4.1

A college or university program that gives classes and advice to people who are not regular students

emphasizes evening or online offerings for the same public

How Formal

community college
  • US
79 3.0
university extension
1 4.1

Surface Forms

Morphology

university + extension

The meaning is directly derivable from 'university' (an institution that teaches) and 'extension' (expending availability or outreach): it denotes university-run courses/programs offered more widely. This noun-noun compositional pattern is common and cross-linguistically transparent, so a B1 learner who knows the constituent words would likely infer the meaning.

Etymology

The phrase university extension comes from the image of a university offering an extension of its teaching into the town, with teachers bringing classes off campus or offering evening lessons for local people. So it means 'courses for the public or for people who are not regular students'.