A diploma is the physical or official document you receive for completing a course of study. A degree is the qualification itself, awarded by a college or university. In everyday speech people often frame their diploma on the wall to show off the degree it certifies.
The core difference
A diploma is the certificate awarded for finishing a course; a degree is the academic qualification behind it.
- diploma — an official document awarded for completing a course of study or earning a qualification: She framed her nursing diploma and hung it in her office.
- degree — an academic qualification awarded by a college or university on completion of a course of study: She earned a degree in biology before going to medical school.
How to tell them apart
Think of the degree as the qualification and the diploma as the paperwork that proves you hold it. When someone finishes a university course, the university awards them a degree, and the diploma is the document that certifies it — the thing that gets framed and hung on a wall.
Degree carries two other common meanings worth knowing so they are not confused with the academic sense: a unit for measuring angles or temperature (thirty degrees Celsius), and a general extent or level of something (a surprising degree of patience).
