Colleges at Penn State should not be confused with campuses. A campus offers courses that lead to a degree. Students will take classes, and in many cases reside at one of the 20 undergraduate campuses in the Penn State system.  On the other hand, a college  grants the degree once those courses are completed. Most degree-seeking Penn State students attend a campus and are enrolled in a college.

At Penn State, most first-year students are admitted to a college or the Division of Undergraduate Studies (DUS) within the University, and not directly to a major. They then declare a major in a college at the end of their sophomore year. This allows the student some flexibility at the beginning of their academic career to study a variety of programs before declaring a major.

Students interested in choosing between majors in a single college, like the College of Science, for example, should enroll in that college and use the help of an adviser there to decide on a major. Students interested in exploring a variety of majors spanning different colleges should consider enrolling in DUS, where they will work with advisers who will keep them on track toward academic progress, while they investigate different majors.

Eleven academic colleges within the University offer degrees that typically must be completed at the University Park campus: the College of Agricultural Sciences, the College of Arts and Architecture, The Smeal College of Business, the College of Communications, the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences, the College of Education, the College of Engineering, the College of Health and Human Development, the College of Information Sciences and Technology, the College of the Liberal Arts, and the Eberly College of Science. Students interested in majors in these colleges can (with a few exceptions) start their education at just about any Penn State campus, and then transition to University Park following their sophomore year.

The six remaining Penn State colleges, located throughout the state, offer majors that are typically completed at campuses other than University Park. These are the Abington College (Penn State Abington campus), the Altoona College (Penn State Altoona campus), Penn State's Behrend College (Penn State Erie campus), the Berks College (Penn State Berks campus), the Capital College (Penn State Harrisburg campus), and the University College (including Penn State Beaver, Penn State Delaware County, Penn State DuBois, Penn State Fayette, Penn State Greater Allegheny, Penn State Hazleton, Penn State Lehigh Valley, Penn State Mont Alto, Penn State New Kensington, Penn State Shenango, Penn State Schuylkill, Penn State Wilkes-Barre, Penn State Worthington-Scranton and Penn State York campuses). Students interested in majors offered by these colleges may usually start at one campus and finish at another.