The Russian word for school is школа. If a little Russian girl wanted to complain in the morning in a very grammatical fashion, she might say to Mama «Но не хочу я сегодня в школу идти!» "But I don't want to go to school today!" But actually the little girl would usually leave the 'to go' verb out of the sentence and simply say, «Не хочу я сегодня в школу!» Russian children never win that battle. A boy who goes to school is a школьник schoolboy, and школьница is a schoolgirl. Some Russian schools require the kids to wear a school uniform школьная форма.

An American college student might say "I don't work. I'm going to school these days," but in Russian школа is never used to refer to college. Instead a Russian would say «Я хожу в университет» "I go to the university," or «Я учусь в университете» "I study at the university," or «Я студент» «Я студентка» "I'm a college student."