This is a list of the colleges within the University of Cambridge. These colleges provide most of the accommodation for undergraduates and graduates at the University, and at the undergraduate level they have responsibility for admitting students to the University and organising their tuition. They also provide funding, accommodation, or both, for some of the senior research posts in the University. They are self-governed charities in their own right, with their own endowments and possessions. Until the mid-19th century, both Cambridge and Oxford comprised a group of colleges with a small central university administration, rather than universities in the common sense.