Undergraduate education is education taken prior to gaining a first degree, hence in many subjects in many educational systems, undergraduate education is post-secondary education up to the level of a bachelor's degree, such as in the United States, where a university entry level is known as undergraduate, while students of higher degrees are known as graduates, while in some other educational systems and subjects, undergraduate education is post-secondary education up to the level of a master's degree, for example some science and engineering courses in Britain or some medicine courses in Europe.

English, Welsh and Northern Irish system

Students in England,Wales and Scotland enter university at the age of eighteen, usually having studied A-levels and thus having had fourteen years of schooling.

The Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS).

For their first degree, most students read for the degree of bachelor, which usually takes three years, however in the sciences and engineering integrated courses covering both undergraduate level and advanced degree level leading to the degree of master, usually taking four years and including a research project or dissertation are popular. Given the integrated nature of these programs someone who gains a master's degree via an integrated program is not admitted to the degree of bachelor; the exception being some Oxbridge degrees where a BA would be conferred after the first three years even on those reading the sciences.

Master's degrees conferred after an extended programs are not to be conflated with the degree of Master of Arts conferred at Oxbridge which is not a substantive qualification, but reflects the ancient practice of those two universities of promoting Bachelors of Arts to Masters of Arts (and thus full membership of the University) six or seven years after matriculation.

Honours degrees and integrated master's degrees are awarded with 1st, upper 2nd, lower 2nd or 3rd class honours. If a student passes the course but fails to do so sufficiently well for third class honours to be awarded he will be awarded with an ordinary degree. Some graduates write "Hons" after their degree postnominals to show that they have an honours degree rather than an ordinary degree however some consider this to be an affectation.

Many universities offer sandwich courses or extramural year which offer work placements whereby the student works for a short period of time in a relevant industry before he completes his studies. Taking a sandwich course may make the course last a year longer than it would otherwise.

Apart from a single private university, Buckingham, all universities with the power to award degrees are heavily state financed however they also rely on tuition fees set by the government at a maximum index-linked level, repayable after graduation contingent on attaining a certain level of income, and with the state paying all fees for students from the poorest backgrounds. UK students are generally entitled to student loans for maintenance with repayment contingent on income. Unlike in other European countries, the British government does not own the universities' assets and university staff are not civil servants. United Kingdom universities are therefore better described as autonomous intellectually independent institutions with public funding, rather than public universities per se. The crown does not control syllabi,with the exception of teacher training. The crown restricts the power to award degree to those with a royal charter, in the case of traditional universities, or authorisation from the Secretary of State for Universities, in the case of modern universities. Universities accredited in foreign countries,such as Richmond University are however free to operate.