The eight Academias of the world (aptly translated as "Academies" or "Universities" in Drakonian) are highly prestigious, expensive, and successful teaching institutions that have lasted for millennia, but being particularly noted for their ancient Drakonian style of curriculum and education.
Rather than being traditional schools, they continue to guide pupils beyond their traditional date of graduation, being more of an advanced mentorship between each pupil and educator. For this reason, attaining a teaching job at an Academia is considered a great feat; it is no easy task to maintain relations between several hundred students for years after their contact with a normal teacher would have ended.
There is also dormitory housing on most Academia grounds, and some Academias can appear to be small cities or suburban residences of their own. The Academia Faercrest is a good example, with its enrolled students living on the grounds totaling about five percent of the population of Faercrest itself.
Academias remain costly even ten thousand years after their inception, and usually only nobles and their children can afford to attend. Academia Ethromaia was likely the first one to be founded, with architectural evidence pointing to a time during the Age of Legends. Ethromaia's Academia was the main center of education and knowledge for thousands of years, until Academia Cerynaia was founded about three thousand years later, Academia Caridrea being founded a thousand years after that. The last Academia to be founded was Academia Aegorom in 89 BC, by Draegon I Dragomyr's great-grandfather.
Academias are also known for their huge size. The largest, Academia Cerynaia, is so large it may be considered its own city. Although technically inside Ceryne's city borders thousands of years ago, it has long expanded beyond these borders and takes up around eight hundred hectares, or roughly just above three square miles. (Due to tradition, all Academias have been built using hectares as a measurement, and their size has always been measured in such.)