Short answers, pulled from the story.
The University of California was founded on the 23rd of March 1868, when Governor Henry H. Haight signed the Organic Act into state law. The university emerged from a merger between the private College of California and a state agricultural college that existed only on paper.
UC faculty and researchers have won 75 Nobel Prizes as of 2025. Berkeley has the most affiliated Nobel laureates of any single campus, followed by UC San Diego and UCLA.
Janet Napolitano became the first woman to serve as UC president, taking office on the 30th of September 2013. She had previously served as Secretary of Homeland Security and as Governor of Arizona.
Dr. Michael V. Drake became the first Black president of the University of California system, taking office on the 1st of August 2020. He was selected on the 7th of July 2020 and previously served as a UC chancellor and medical research professor.
The University of California system has ten campuses: Berkeley, Davis, Irvine, Los Angeles, Merced, Riverside, San Diego, San Francisco, Santa Barbara, and Santa Cruz. The newest campus, UC Merced, opened in fall 2005.
Yes. UC formally began charging tuition in 2010, when the regents renamed the Educational Fee to Tuition on the 18th of November of that year. Prior to this, fees that functioned as tuition had been in place since the late 1970s following cuts to state funding after Proposition 13 passed in 1978.