The 20 most memorable fictional TV colleges and universities

We’re starting off old school. “The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis,” which debuted in 1959, was one of the first shows to focus on teenagers. The show started at a high school, but then they graduated. Dobie and TV’s original beatnik Maynard G. Krebs then went into the army, but that was brief. After that, Dobie, Maynard, and some of the gang went to S. Peter Pryor Junior College, making the show about school life again, but this time on the collegiate level.

You might be thinking, “Isn’t that the college from ‘Animal House’?” That’s a movie, not a TV show! Yes, “Animal House” is a movie, but it was so explosive that it led to a TV spinoff, and also a couple ripoff shows as well. The actual spinoff was titled “Delta House,” and it returned us to Faber College. Some of the cast returned (shockingly none of the famous people) and a young Michelle Pfeiffer played the role of The Bombshell. That’s not the character archetype she played. Her character was literally named “The Bombshell.”

Yes, Minnesota State University is a real university now, one with a solid hockey program. However, until 1998 it was known as Mankato State University. The sitcom “Coach” aired from 1989 until 1997, so it’s in the clear. Plus, the last couple of seasons of the show Hayden Fox and company were coaching the NFL’s Orlando Breakers. Prior to that, though, Fox was the head man for the Minnesota State University Screaming Eagles. The actual Minnesota State University are the Mavericks, by the way.

“A Different World” was supposed to be a vehicle for Lisa Bonet as Denise Huxtable. It would be about her adventures at Hillman College, a fictional HCBU. However, Bonet became pregnant with the baby who would grow up to be Zoe Kravitz, and very normal human being Bill Cosby told her to kick rocks. Denise was gone after the first season. So was the white student at Hillman, which meant they got rid of some actress named Marisa Tomei. In spite of these decisions, “A Different World” ran six seasons.

The silly, but fun, sitcom “3rd Rock from the Sun” is about a quartet of aliens pretending to be humans in order to observe life on Earth. They settle in the fictional town of Rutherford, Ohio, and the alien now known as Dick Solomon needs a job. Because said alien has a knowledge of physics that surpasses almost every human, Dick gets a job as a professor at Pendelton State University. Much of the humor comes from the fact that Dick, while a scientific genius, is a social idiot since he is literally new to Earth. The most prominent human character, Mary Albright, is also a professor at Pendelton.

“Beverly Hills, 90210,” a soapy drama for teenagers starring twentysomethings pretending to be teenagers, started at a high school in the titular city. Eventually though, everybody (including Donna Martin) graduates. What then? Well, a couple of the characters end up at California University. Even Andrea Zuckerman! She could have gone to Yale!

“Boy Meets World” had one of the sweatier, “Dammit, we have to figure out how to keep these characters together!” trajectories. Cory and Shawn (and soon Topanga) were middle-school students early on, and the producers couldn’t have projected that the show would run for seven seasons. Eventually, the kids graduate high school, with the main kids heading to the fictional Pennbrook. Like Andrea, Topanga turns down Yale. Where “Boy Meets World” always strained credulity was Mr. Feeny. He started as a middle-school teacher, then became the high school principal, and then inexplicably he gets a job as a college professor at Pennbrook to keep him around.

New York University is real. The University of New York is not, making it a fictional school with an unimaginative name. “Felicity” is best remembered for when Felicity cut her hair. If you weren’t culturally aware at that time, yes, this was a big deal. The show had a bugnuts original premise as well (though reasonable when you remember that the main character is a teenager). Felicity decides to eschew being a pre-med student at Stanford in order to follow a boy to the University of New York…because he wrote something nice in her yearbook. TV characters have a permission structure to be crazy that real people do not.

When TV writers are feeling lazy and they need a fictional college, it’s pretty easy just to say, “I don’t know, California University?” The writers on “Saved By the Bell: The College Years” were nothing if not lazy. Also, not funny, or at least not intentionally funny. “Saved by the Bell” ended with the Bayside gang all set to head off to their different futures. However, NBC wanted to mine them more, or at least the ones willing to return for another paycheck, and so Zack, Slater, Screech and Kelly all end up at Cal U. All of that work, and it lasted for all of 19 episodes.

Maybe because of the word “Tiny” in the title of “Tiny Toons Adventures,” we didn’t see Acme Loonversity as a university. It seems like maybe it is supposed to be, though? Either way, the world of Acme Looniversity was rebooted in “Tiny Toons Looniversity.” The characters are clearly designed to be aged up, so at least in this version we can feel confident this is a fictional university.

The specific genericness – or is it the generic specificity – of University of Northeastern California is funny. That’s fitting for a sitcom about college life. “Undeclared” came to us from Judd Apatow, back before he was a film impresario dedicated to casting his wife and children in as many movies as possible. “Undeclared” only lasted one season, but Apatow and company’s eye for talent was clear. Here are just some of the people in regular or recurring roles: Jay Burachel, Seth Rogen, Charlie Hunnam, Jason Segal, Amy Poehler, and Kevin Hart.

If you’re a “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” fan at all, the second you saw “Sunnydale” you knew what we were talking about. Buffy Summers is a Sunnyvale gal through and through. The show starts with the characters at Sunnydale High School, but since it is established Sunnydale, California is atop a hellmouth, they were backed into a corner in terms of keeping Buffy in town. Thus, the gang stays local for college, and fortunately for them there’s a branch of the University of California in their city.

For teens who didn’t want to wait for their lives to be over, there was “Dawson’s Creek.” Another soapy show for teens, one that gave James Van Der Beek plenty of opportunities to make his crying face, “Dawson’s Creek” began at a high school in the fictional town of Capeside, Massachusetts. The first four seasons each cover a year of high school, leaving the fifth season to set them off to college. At first, Dawson is studying film at USC (which is real), but Joey, Jack, and Jen head off to Worthington, a fictional school in Boston. Pacey gets a job at a restaurant. He was off on his own thing.

Community colleges rarely have gotten love from television. “Community,” on the other hand, fully focuses on a community college. A terrible one, at that. Greendale is in a fictional Colorado town, and the show focuses on a mismatched grouping of teens and adults who come together as a study group. Then, naturally, things grow from there. The cultishly-adored sitcom became as much about pop culture riffs as college life, but Greendale always remained at the core.

It’s weird that some call fraternities and sororities “Greek life,” but at least it gave the TV show “Greek” a title. The dramedy, which aired on what was then ABC Family (now Freeform), set all its stories at one of two frats or at one sorority. While “Greek,” which by the way ran an impressive 74 episodes, was an ensemble piece, one of the primary members of that ensemble was Spencer Grammer, Kelsey Grammer's daughter. Quite stylish!

The college in “Revenge of the Nerds” is also named Adams College, but that’s not the one we’re talking about. “Sabrina the Teenage Witch,” based on the Archie comics character, starred Melissa Joan Hart as the titular witch. She was in high school when the show began, and that’s where she could have remained. ABC canceled “Sabrina” after the fourth season. However, The WB then picked it up, and the decision was made to send Sabrina off to college. Thus, she began her WB run (which lasted three seasons) at Adams College.

Most of these shows are sitcoms. “How to Get Away with Murder” very much is not. EGOT winner Viola Davis grabbed an Emmy for her role as Annalise Keating, a law professor at a fictional prestigious university in Philadelphia, a fine city for real-life colleges. Keating is a professor at Middleton (and also involved in a murder plot with some of her students, by the way).

Ryan Murphy’s “Scream Queens” is a winking, sardonic riff on slasher movies. As in so many of those films (particularly the tawdry ones), a serial killer is targeting a college sorority. Kappa Kappa Tau is a sorority at the fictional Wallace University. They tried to do a second season, but it became pretty clear that they had more than exhausted the premise. Still, the first season had a lot of fun in it.

“Dear White People,” the film is a look at college life and race relations set at Winchester, a fictional Ivy League school that seems to effectively be Harvard. Also, while the title is intentionally provocative, the movie is actually trenchant in its observations going in different directions, racially speaking. With plenty more stories to tell, “Dear While People” was turned into a Netflix show. It lasted four seasons and 40 episodes.

“Grown-ish” is basically “A Different World” for “Black-ish.” The show began with Zoey Johnson, the eldest daughter, heading off to California University of Liberal Arts. Once the time came for her to graduate, Andre Jr. came to matriculate at California University for the last two seasons. One thing is for sure: If an actual California University was founded, it would really complicate a lot of TV shows and Google searches.