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— CH. 1 · INTRODUCTION —

University of California

~12 min read · Ch. 1 of 8
8 sections

  • The University of California was signed into law on the 23rd of March 1868, born not from a clean legislative vision but from a merger born of desperation and compromise. A private liberal arts college was running out of money. A state agricultural college existed only on paper. Neither could survive alone. So they struck a deal, and what emerged from that unlikely union became one of the most consequential public institutions in American history.

    How does a cash-strapped frontier academy become a system of ten campuses, home to 299,407 students and more than two and a half million alumni? How does a university founded to teach farming and mining evolve into a powerhouse whose faculty have claimed 75 Nobel Prizes? And why did it take nearly a century of internal fighting before the system truly became a system at all? Those are the questions this documentary sets out to answer.

  • Henry Durant, a Congregational minister and Yale alumnus, opened the private Contra Costa Academy on the 20th of June 1853, in downtown Oakland. The initial site sat between Twelfth and Fourteenth Streets and Harrison and Franklin Streets, a location marked today by State Historical Plaque No. 45. Durant's trustees received a college charter in 1855, and by 1860 the institution had added college-level courses. But the trouble was persistent: on the American frontier, there was simply little appetite for a classical liberal arts education. The college was graduating only three or four students per year.

    Meanwhile, the California State Legislature had established an Agricultural, Mining, and Mechanical Arts College in 1866 to take advantage of the Morrill Land-Grant Acts. It existed only on paper, a legal placeholder to secure federal land-grant funds, with money but no buildings, no faculty, no students.

    Governor Frederick Low favored a state university modeled on the University of Michigan, and he was present at the College of California's 1867 commencement when Yale professor Benjamin Silliman Jr. publicly criticized Californians for building a polytechnic school rather than a real university. That same day, Low reportedly first suggested the merger: combine the functioning college, which had land, faculty, and students but no funds, with the nonfunctional state college, which had funds and nothing else.

    The college's trustees reluctantly agreed on the 9th of October 1867, but under one firm condition. There would be no mere agricultural school. There would be a complete university, within which a new College of Letters would preserve the liberal arts mission they had built. Assemblyman John W. Dwinelle introduced the Organic Act on the 5th of March 1868. Governor Henry H. Haight signed it into law on the 23rd of March. The University of California was born.

    Yet the new institution was not truly a merger. Governor Haight saw no obligation to honor informal promises made by his predecessor. Only two college trustees became regents. A single faculty member, Martin Kellogg, was hired by the new university. By April 1869, the original trustees had second thoughts and tried to reclaim their donated assets. Regent John B. Felton helped arrange a friendly lawsuit to test the agreement's legality. The trustees lost.

  • Robert Gordon Sproul became UC president in 1930 and held the office until 1958, longer than any other person. For most of those years, he resisted turning UC into a genuine multi-campus system. Other UC locations were treated as off-site departments of Berkeley, run by provosts who answered directly to the president. The structure was tight, centralized, and deliberately so.

    Pressure from the south eventually forced change. Los Angeles surpassed San Francisco in the 1920 census to become California's most populous city. Because Los Angeles had become the state's largest source of both tax revenue and votes, its residents argued loudly for equal standing. In March 1951, UCLA became the first UC site outside Berkeley to achieve formal coequal status. The regents approved a plan placing both Berkeley and Los Angeles under chancellors who would report as equals to the UC president.

    But Sproul and his allies simply carried on as before. The chancellors ended up as what one account described as glorified provosts, with limited control over academic affairs while the president and regents retained effective authority over nearly everything. Clark Kerr, who had become Berkeley's first chancellor in that same 1951 reorganization, watched the reform stall from the inside.

    When Kerr succeeded Sproul as UC president in October 1957, he moved decisively. From 1957 to 1960, a series of proposals adopted unanimously by the regents granted all campus chancellors the full range of executive powers that Sproul had denied. Kerr also radically decentralized a bureaucracy in which all authority had always run to the president at Berkeley or to the regents themselves.

    In 1965, UCLA Chancellor Franklin D. Murphy tried to push further. He advocated for letting all chancellors report directly to the Board of Regents, eliminating the UC president's role entirely and transforming the system into a confederation of independent universities. Kerr described this as Murphy's rebellion and moved quickly to end it. Kerr's vision held: one university with pluralistic decision-making. The internal delegation of authority to chancellors did not change the fact that all campuses remained one legal entity, governed by one Board of Regents and one president.

  • California farmers lobbied hard for research that addressed their immediate needs. In 1905, the Legislature established a University Farm School at Davis, and in 1907 a Citrus Experiment Station at Riverside, both as adjuncts to Berkeley's College of Agriculture. In 1912, UC acquired a private oceanography laboratory in San Diego that had been founded nine years earlier by local business promoters working with a Berkeley professor. In 1944, UC acquired Santa Barbara State College from the California State Colleges system.

    Starting in 1958, the regents began promoting these satellite locations to general campuses. Santa Barbara came first in 1958, followed by UC Davis and UC Riverside in 1959, UC San Diego in 1960, and UCSF in 1964. Each promotion came with its own chancellor. In 1965, two entirely new campuses opened at once: UC Irvine in Irvine and UC Santa Cruz in Santa Cruz. The youngest campus, UC Merced, opened in fall 2005 to serve the San Joaquin Valley.

    Not every transition was smooth. After Los Angeles and Santa Barbara left the California State College system for UC, supporters of the state colleges arranged for the state constitution to be amended in 1946 to prevent similar losses in the future. And the question of where UC's headquarters belonged was itself contested. In 1986, it was decided that the UC president should no longer be based at Berkeley. The UC Office of the President moved to Kaiser Center in Oakland in 1989, a lakefront location that drew widespread criticism as too elegant and too corporate for a public university. In 1998, it moved again, to a modest building near the former site of the College of California in Oakland, the very institution whose bankruptcy had made UC possible in the first place.

  • Eighteen regents are appointed by the governor for twelve-year terms. One member is a student appointed for a single year. Seven more serve ex officio: the governor, lieutenant governor, speaker of the State Assembly, State Superintendent of Public Instruction, president and vice president of the UC alumni associations, and the UC president. The Academic Senate, composed of faculty, holds the power to set academic policies.

    The regents' independence from the rest of the California state government is not a policy preference. It is protected by the state constitution, a protection put in place in 1879 that has had lasting and sometimes strange consequences. When Serranus Clinton Hastings founded the Hastings College of the Law in 1878, it was affiliated with UC by a state statute. After a falling out with his own handpicked board of directors, Hastings persuaded the legislature in 1883 and 1885 to pass new laws giving him direct control. In 1886, the Supreme Court of California struck those laws down: the 1879 constitution had stripped the legislature of the ability to amend the original 1878 act. The result is that the College of the Law, which dropped Hastings from its name in 2023, remains a UC affiliate but is not governed by the regents and must seek funding directly from the Legislature.

    In 2008, the Western Association of Schools and Colleges, the system's regional accreditor, criticized UC for significant problems in governance, leadership, and decision-making, citing confusion about the roles and responsibilities of the university president, the regents, and the ten campus chancellors. Governance had been a source of friction from the first days of the university, and the accreditor's 2008 report suggested it remained unresolved.

    All UC presidents were white men until 2013, when Janet Napolitano, a former Homeland Security Secretary and Governor of Arizona, became the first woman to hold the office. In 2020, Dr. Michael V. Drake, a former UC chancellor and medical research professor, was selected as the 21st president, becoming the first Black president in the system's then-152-year history. He took office on the 1st of August 2020.

  • In 1980, the state of California funded 86.8% of the UC budget. By the 2021-2022 fiscal year, state spending on UC had reached $3.467 billion out of total UC operating revenues of $41.6 billion. But that $3.467 billion represented a far smaller share of the whole: the system's medical centers alone contributed 39% of operating revenues, with federal funds at 11%, and student tuition bundled with state and UC general funds at 21%.

    Proposition 13, passed by California voters in 1978, severely limited long-term property tax revenue and caused state financial support for UC to collapse. To compensate, UC imposed fees that were, in practice, tuition in all but name. On the 18th of November 2010, the regents formally acknowledged what had long been true by renaming the Educational Fee to Tuition. Undergraduate student fees had risen 90% from 2003 to 2007. In 2011, for the first time in UC history, student fees exceeded contributions from the state.

    In the 1930s, under President Sproul, UC's mission formally shifted away from instruction and toward research, public service, and knowledge creation. The Master Plan for Higher Education, enacted into state law in 1960, designated UC as the primary state-supported academic agency for research. As of the end of fiscal year 2023, UC controls 13,810 active patents, and its researchers generated 1,440 new inventions in that year alone. On average, UC researchers create four new inventions per day.

    The research mission also extends into classified territory. During the World War II Manhattan Project, Lawrence Berkeley Lab developed the electromagnetic method for separating uranium isotopes used to build the first atomic bombs. The Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore labs have been involved in designing nuclear weapons from their inception through the shift into stockpile stewardship after the Cold War. Lawrence Livermore was not officially severed administratively from Lawrence Berkeley until the early 1970s, a fact that reflects how deeply intertwined these institutions were. In September 2019, UC announced it would divest its $83 billion in endowment and pension funds from the fossil fuel industry, citing the financial risk inherent in that sector because of climate change.

  • Before 1986, a student applying to UC could choose only one campus. Those rejected but otherwise eligible were redirected to a campus with open space. UC Riverside chancellor Ivan Hinderaker described the consequences in 1972: redirection had been a negative rather than a plus, with some students arriving with a chip on their shoulders so big they never gave the campus a chance. In 1986, the system shifted to multiple filing, letting students apply to as many campuses as they wished on a single application, paying a separate fee for each.

    The Master Plan established that UC must admit undergraduates from the top 12.5% of graduating California high school seniors. The Eligibility in the Local Context program, known as ELC, extends guaranteed access to students ranked in the top 9% of their own high school class. Beginning with fall 2007 applicants, ELC also required a UC-calculated GPA of at least 3.0.

    In May 2021, following a student lawsuit, UC announced it would no longer consider SAT and ACT scores in admissions or scholarship decisions. In 2021, the freshman class was the most diverse and largest in UC history, with 84,223 students. Latinos were the largest group at 37%, followed by Asian Americans at 34%, white non-Hispanics at 20%, and African Americans at 5%.

    Admissions have not been without controversy. A 2020 California auditor's report found that at least 64 wealthy students were wrongfully admitted to UC schools as favors to powerful figures, with 55 of those 64 cases occurring at UC Berkeley. UC has also faced sustained criticism for increasing the percentage of out-of-state and international students, who pay higher tuition. At a Board of Regents meeting in 2015, Governor Jerry Brown remarked that ordinary students with good grades were getting frozen out in favor of foreign students and applicants with perfect grade point averages. UC reversed course that same year, committing to admit more California residents. Approximately one in three UC students today begins their education at a California community college before transferring.

  • The University of California library system holds 40.8 million print volumes, one of the largest collections of printed materials in the world. On the 27th of July 2021, all ten campuses went live with a unified online catalog called UC Library Search. The two regional library facilities, one serving Northern California and one serving Southern California, held a combined 13.9 million items as of 2019.

    The Natural Reserve System, established in January 1965, manages 39 reserves totaling more than 756,000 acres, providing long-term research sites undisturbed by tourists or development. UC manages two observatories: Lick Observatory atop Mount Hamilton in the Diablo Range east of San Jose, and Keck Observatory at the 4,145-meter summit of Mauna Kea in Hawaii.

    On the 14th of November 2022, about 48,000 academic workers at all ten UC campuses and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory went on strike for higher pay and benefits, authorized by the United Auto Workers union. The UAW alleged more than 20 unfair labor practice charges against UC, including unilateral policy changes and obstruction of worker negotiation. The strike lasted almost six weeks, ending officially on the 23rd of December.

    The UC Extension program has enrolled over 700,000 students in more than 3,000 courses, with approximately 100,000 students attending during the 2022-2023 academic year. The program is an approved and dominant provider of education for WIOA and TAAP workers in California. UC also runs a seaport through UC San Diego's Scripps Institution of Oceanography, owns an operating airport at UC Davis, manages five medical centers handling about 10.8 million outpatient visits per year, and operates the oldest and largest alumni association-run family camp in the world, the Lair of the Golden Bear, located at 5,600 feet in Pinecrest, California, hosting almost 10,000 campers annually.

Common questions

When was the University of California founded?

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.

How many Nobel Prize winners are affiliated with the University of California?

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.

Who was the first woman president of the University of California?

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.

Who was the first Black president of the University of California?

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.

How many campuses does the University of California system have?

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.

Does the University of California charge tuition to California residents?

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.

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All sources

207 references cited across the entry

  1. 1webStocks and real estate power UC's investments to $180 billion at fiscal year endAugust 1, 2024
  2. 2webThe University of California at a Glance February 2025University of California — February 2025
  3. 3webThe UC Brand | ColorBrand.universityofcalifornia.edu
  4. 4webCampuses & locationsJanuary 15, 2020
  5. 5webLand-Grant Colleges and UniversitiesUnited States Department of Agriculture National Institute of Food and Agriculture — 2020
  6. 6webShould You Go to a Public Ivy? 5 Factors to ConsiderLaura Staffaroni
  7. 7webUniversity of California Nobel LaureatesUC Regents
  8. 8webUC National Laboratories UCOP
  9. 9webA brief history of the University of California UCOP
  10. 10webUC 150th Anniversary TimelineUniversity of California
  11. 11webPast Chancellors
  12. 12webRaymond Allen
  13. 13inlineCal. Const. Art. IX, § 4 (1849).
  14. 14bookThe University of California, 1868–1968Verne A. Stadtman — McGraw-Hill — 1970
  15. 15bookThe Soul of the American University: From Protestant Establishment to Established NonbeliefGeorge M. Marsden — Oxford University Press — 1994
  16. 16bookUniversity of California, Berkeley: An Architectural TourHarvey Helfand — Princeton Architectural Press — 2002
  17. 17inlineThis agreement is evident in section 7 of the Organic Act, in which the state agreed to establish the College of Letters in consideration of the College of California's gift. See Cal. Stats., 17th ses
  18. 18webDaniel Coit Gilman and the Early Years of UC – Special Topics – A History of UCSF
  19. 20bookThe California State ConstitutionJoseph R. Grodin et al. — Oxford University Press — 2016
  20. 21inlineCal. Const. Art. IX, § 9 .
  21. 22bookHastings College of the Law: The First CenturyThomas Garden Barnes — University of California Hastings College of the Law Press — 1978
  22. 23inlinePeople v. Kewen , 69 Cal. 215, 10 P. 393 (1886).
  23. 24inlineSee Cal. Stats., 17th sess., 1867–1868, ch. 244, § 1, p. 248.
  24. 25webAbout UCOPRegents of the University of California
  25. 26inlineCalifornia Education Code Section 66010.4.
  26. 27webSan José State University: About SJSU: 1880–1899San José State University
  27. 28bookThe People's University: A History of the California State UniversityDonald R. Gerth — Berkeley Public Policy Press — 2010
  28. 29bookUCLA: The First CenturyMarina Dundjerski — Third Millennium Publishing — 2011
  29. 30bookUCLA: The First CenturyMarina Dundjerski — Third Millennium Publishing — 2011
  30. 31bookUCLA: The First CenturyMarina Dundjerski — Third Millennium Publishing — 2011
  31. 32bookThe Culture Broker: Franklin D. Murphy and the Transformation of Los AngelesMargaret Leslie Davis — University of California Press — 2007
  32. 33bookThe Gold and the Blue: A Personal Memoir of the University of California, 1949–1967, Volume 1Clark Kerr — University of California Press — 2001
  33. 34inlineBylaw 31, Chancellors , Bylaws of the Regents of the University of California.
  34. 35bookThe Gold and the Blue: A Personal Memoir of the University of California, 1949–1967, Volume 1Clark Kerr — University of California Press — 2001
  35. 36bookThe Gold and the Blue: A Personal Memoir of the University of California, 1949–1967, Volume 1Clark Kerr — University of California Press — 2001
  36. 37newsChancellors Emerge as Powerful Force in University: New Role of UC Campus Chiefs Seen as One of Most Significant Developments of Past Five YearsWilliam Trombley — December 27, 1965
  37. 38bookThe Gold and the Blue: A Personal Memoir of the University of California, 1949–1967, Volume 1Clark Kerr — University of California Press — 2001
  38. 39bookThe Gold and the Blue: A Personal Memoir of the University of California, 1949–1967, Volume 1Clark Kerr — University of California Press — 2001
  39. 40bookThe University of California: History and AchievementsDean C. Johnson — University of California Press — 1996
  40. 41bookEntrepreneurial President: Richard Atkinson and the University of California, 1995–2003Patricia A. Pelfrey — University of California Press — 2012
  41. 42bookEntrepreneurial President: Richard Atkinson and the University of California, 1995–2003Patricia A. Pelfrey — University of California Press — 2012
  42. 43webFall Enrollment At A GlanceUniversity of California — January 19, 2024
  43. 44newsWill California's tuition-free colleges become history?Leon Lindsay — The First Church of Christ, Scientist — December 17, 1982
  44. 45newsCalifornia Weighs End of Free College EducationRobert Lindsey — December 28, 1982
  45. 46newsCalifornia universities consider adopting the T-word: tuitionLarry Gordon — June 14, 2010
  46. 47inlineRegents of the University of California, Regents Policy 3101: The University of California Student Tuition and Fee Policy , UC Office of the President (as approved on January 21, 1994, and with amendm
  47. 48newsUC, where are your native sons and daughters?Jeffrey E. Warren — Hearst Communications — July 14, 2011
  48. 49newsForeign Students Pinch University of California Home-State AdmissionsMiriam Jordan et al. — Dow Jones & Company, Inc. — November 16, 2015
  49. 50newsPublic Colleges Chase Out-of-State Students, and TuitionStephanie Saul — July 7, 2016
  50. 51newsUC officials call for mediator as strike by 48,000 academic workers causes systemwide disruptionsGrace Toohey et al. — November 14, 2022
  51. 52newsBREAKING: Thousands of UAW Academic Union Workers Across UC Campuses Vote to Authorize StrikeNiloufar Shahbandi — University of California, San Diego — November 3, 2022
  52. 53newsUniversity of California Academic Workers End StrikeShawn Hubler — December 24, 2022
  53. 54bookUCOP Franklin-Broadway Campus Welcome GuideUniversity of California Office of the President — Regents of the University of California — 2022
  54. 55bookThe Gold and the Blue: A Personal Memoir of the University of California, 1949–1967, Volume 1Clark Kerr — University of California Press — 2001
  55. 56bookThe University of California: A Pictorial HistoryAlbert G. Pickerell et al. — University of California Press — 1968
  56. 57bookA Brief History of the University of CaliforniaPatricia A. Pelfrey et al. — University of California Press — 2004
  57. 58webPrevious UC presidentsUniversity of California
  58. 59newsMEETING OF THE BOARD OF REGENTSJune 15, 1869
  59. 60newsState University.August 17, 1870
  60. 61newsTHE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIAAugust 17, 1870
  61. 62newsNEWS OF THE MORNING.August 1, 1872
  62. 63newsPresident Gilman.November 7, 1872
  63. 64newsA Short Course of Instruction.March 18, 1875
  64. 65newsEXIT GILMAN.March 25, 1875
  65. 66newsTHE UNIVERSITY MUDDLE.June 11, 1881
  66. 67newsTHE STATE UNIVERSITY.July 2, 1881
  67. 68newsThe State University Inauguration of the New President.August 24, 1881
  68. 69newsUNIVERSITY REGENTS.March 4, 1885
  69. 70newsBOARD OF REGENTS.October 21, 1885
  70. 71newsPRESIDENT E. S. HOLDEN, Of the State University, to be Inaugurated January 6th.December 6, 1885
  71. 72newsUNIVERSITY REGENTS.January 11, 1888
  72. 73newsHorace DavisFebruary 8, 1888
  73. 74newsPRESIDENT DAVIS.March 24, 1888
  74. 75newsBerkeleySeptember 16, 1890
  75. 76newsTHE UNIVERSITY PRESIDENCYJanuary 25, 1893
  76. 77newsPROF. KELLOGG RESIGNS.September 14, 1898
  77. 78newsWHEELER IS NOW PRESIDENT OF THE UNIVERSITYJuly 19, 1899
  78. 79newsDR. WHEELER IS NO LONGER HEAD OF UNIVERSITYJuly 17, 1919
  79. 80newsDR. DAVID PRESCOTT BARROWS IS APPOINTED PRESIDENT OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIADecember 20, 1919
  80. 81newsDR. CAMPBELL NEW HEAD OF UC.January 5, 1923
  81. 82newsDr. Clark Kerr to Take Over As U.C Chancellor in JulyFebruary 8, 1952
  82. 83newsPRESIDENT SPROUL RETIRES IN JUNEVince Lawton — March 20, 1958
  83. 84newsROBT. SPROUL NEW U. C. HEAD; DR. W.W.CAMPBELL TO RESIGNAugust 19, 1929
  84. 85newsKerr to Replace SproulOctober 29, 1957
  85. 86news14-8 vote Regents dismiss KerrCeci Little — January 23, 1967
  86. 87newsKerr Denies Demand for ShowdownGerald Sturges et al. — January 21, 1967
  87. 88webThe Firing of Clark KerrOnline Archive of California
  88. 89newsWellman is acting pres.January 23, 1967
  89. 90newsREGENTS SELECT CHARLES J. HITCH FOR PRESIDENCYOctober 2, 1967
  90. 91newsHitch ResignsOctober 24, 1974
  91. 92webCharles Johnston Hitch, Economics: BerkeleyOnline Archive of California
  92. 93newsRegents Name Saxon as 14th UC PresidentMarch 3, 1975
  93. 94newsSaxon resigns as president of UCSeptember 7, 1982
  94. 95newsBudget cuts may force University of California to reduce its size and scopeRobert Lindsey — June 22, 1983
  95. 96newsGardner Officially Assumes PositionAndrew Smith — August 10, 1983
  96. 97newsGardner defends retirement dealMay 5, 1992
  97. 98newsPeltason named new UC presidentVanessa Lee — April 6, 1992
  98. 99newsPeltason Named as President of UC SystemLarry Gordon — April 4, 1992
  99. 100newsUC Chief Expected to Announce Retirement : Education: Jack W. Peltason, former chancellor of UC Irvine, will resign effective Oct. 1, a source says.Amy Wallace — January 14, 1995
  100. 101newsAtkinson named UC President; UCSA disappointedSeptember 14, 1995
  101. 102newsUC President Richard Atkinson to retireNovember 18, 2002
  102. 103webAtkinson Presidency TimelineAugust 2003
  103. 104newsAtkinson steps down, Dynes steps upKatherine Steelman — October 7, 2003
  104. 105webUCSD Chancellor Dynes Named New UC PresidentThe Regents of the University of California
  105. 106newsUniversity of California President To ResignAria Miran — June 27, 2007
  106. 107newsUniversity of California Appoints New President Mark G. YudofMarch 28, 2008
  107. 108newsNew UC chief is ready for actionLarry Gordon — June 15, 2008
  108. 109newsMark Yudof to Step Down as UC PresidentJanuary 18, 2013
  109. 110newsQ&A: Yudof reflects on time as UC presidentKatherine Hafner — September 22, 2013
  110. 111newsUniversity of California welcomes President NapolitanoSeptember 30, 2013
  111. 112newsJanet Napolitano replaces Mark Yudof as UC presidentKristen Taketa — September 30, 2013
  112. 113newsAnnounces Resignation at Regents MeetingElla Chen et al. — March 4, 2023
  113. 114newsUC President Michael Drake visits UC RiversideUniversity of California
  114. 115newsMichael V. Drake to become 21st president of the University of CaliforniaUniversity of California — July 7, 2020
  115. 116newsUCI Chancellor Emeritus Michael V. Drake named University of California presidentUniversity of California, Irvine — July 7, 2020
  116. 117newsUniversity of California President Michael V. Drake, M.D., announces plans to step down next yearUniversity of California — July 31, 2024
  117. 118newsJames B. Milliken named 22nd president of the University of CaliforniaUniversity of California — May 2, 2025
  118. 119newsJanet Napolitano, Homeland Security chief, to head UCLarry Gordon — July 12, 2013
  119. 120webMichael V. Drake named new UC president, first Black leader in system's 152-year historyTeresa Watanabe — July 7, 2020
  120. 121newsFree mansions for people of means: UC system spends about $1 million yearly on upkeepTanya Schevitz & Todd Wallack — November 14, 2005
  121. 122newsUniversity of California buys $6.5M Berkeley home for its presidentFrances Dinkelspiel — April 12, 2022
  122. 123webUniversity of California Office of the President Organizational ChartRegents of the University of California — July 29, 2022
  123. 124inlineSee University of California Regents Policy 7708, "University-Provided Housing" , as amended through February 27, 2024, and University of California Policy BFB-G-45, "Implementing Requirements on Expe
  124. 125newsChancellor's home gets $10M rehabKaren Kucher — December 19, 2013
  125. 126news10 years later, Chancellor's house finally becomes a homeDave Schwab — San Diego Community News Group — January 24, 2014
  126. 127journalThe Rise of UCSBLanny Ebenstein — 2013
  127. 128newsPart One: State reduces UC funding causing tuition increasesEthan Reznik — November 19, 2015
  128. 129webBudget for Current Operations 2019–20: Summary of the Budget Request as Presented to the Regents for ApprovalUniversity of California
  129. 130webHigher Education Funding in California
  130. 131webCurrent Budget Trends and The Future of the University of CaliforniaCommittee on Planning and Budget — University of California — May 2006
  131. 132newsLess to bank on at state universitiesRichard C. Paddock — October 6, 2007
  132. 133webBudget Analysis and Planning | UCOP
  133. 134newsUC owes millions in refunds to students, appeals court rulesBob Egelko — November 3, 2007
  134. 135newsCiting 'financial risk,' UC pledges to divest from fossil fuelsFelicia Mello — September 18, 2019
  135. 136newsUC criticized for poor governance, controlsTanya Schevitz — February 12, 2008
  136. 137newsU of Big Brother?Scott Jaschik — February 1, 2016
  137. 138webUC CampusesUniversity of California — August 13, 2006
  138. 139newsLeadershipSeptember 25, 2017
  139. 140inlineUniversity of California Office of the President, Policy on Representation of the University on Letterhead and Business Cards , September 28, 1999.
  140. 141webCalifornia Education Code Section 92203State of California — FindLaw — 2008
  141. 143webUCSF Schools Earn Top Rankings in 2017 US News SurveyMarch 16, 2016
  142. 144journalUniversity of California—San Francisco
  143. 145webUniversity of California, San FranciscoJuly 16, 2015
  144. 146webUCSF Leads in Academic Rankings, NIH FundingMarch 28, 2011
  145. 147newsUCSF, Stanford Health Care rank high on best U.S. hospitals listChris Rauber — August 2, 2016
  146. 148webUC Berkeley, UCSF Ranked Top Public Universities In U.S.Kiana Schmitt — July 30, 2015
  147. 149journalUCSF | Best Medical School
  148. 150webForbes America's Top Colleges List 20212021
  149. 151webUC is the top college in America, according to new Forbes rankingsRobyn Schelenz — September 9, 2021
  150. 152bookThe public ivies : America's flagship public universitiesHoward Greene — Cliff Street Books — 2001
  151. 153web"University of California—Berkeley – U.S. News Best Grad School Rankings".
  152. 154web"University of California—Los Angeles – U.S. News Best Grad School Rankings".
  153. 155web"University of California—San Diego – U.S. News Best Grad School Rankings"
  154. 156web"University of California—Santa Cruz – U.S. News Best Grad School Rankings".
  155. 157web"University of California Riverside – U.S. News Best Grad School Rankings".
  156. 158web"University of California—Merced – Graduate School Rankings".
  157. 159webFall enrollment at a glanceJanuary 7, 2025
  158. 160webUniversity of California Annual Endowment Report Fiscal Year Ended June 30, 2024University of California — November 2024
  159. 161web2026 Best National University Rankings
  160. 162web2025 Best Global Universities
  161. 163web2024 Academic Ranking of World UniversitiesShanghaiRanking Consultancy — August 15, 2024
  162. 164webWorld University Rankings 2025 Global 2000 List
  163. 166webWorld University Rankings 2025
  164. 167webQS World University Rankings 2026Quacquarelli Symonds
  165. 168bookThe Political University: Policy, Politics, and Presidential Leadership in the American Research UniversityRobert M. Rosenzweig — Johns Hopkins University Press — 2001
  166. 169journalEditorial: Association of American UniversitiesApril 1900
  167. 170newsFive UC-affiliated scientists win 2024 Nobel PrizesRegents of the University of California — October 16, 2024
  168. 171inlineFacts and Figures: UC Libraries Accessed July 27, 2020.
  169. 172newsUC considers adopting semester system at all schoolsJaweed Kaleem — July 1, 2025
  170. 173bookUCLA General Catalog 2021–22UCLA Registrar's Office Academic Publications — Regents of the University of California — 2021
  171. 174bookThe Gold and the Blue: A Personal Memoir of the University of California, 1949–1967, Volume 1Clark Kerr — University of California Press — 2001
  172. 175newsGolden State Blockbuster: U. of California Will Replace ACT and SAT With New Test — or None at AllEric Hoover — May 21, 2020
  173. 176webUniversity of California drops SAT scores for admissionMay 15, 2021
  174. 177webEarly Academic Outreach ProgramUniversity of California
  175. 178webTransfer UC Admissions
  176. 179webHow applications are reviewed UC Admissions
  177. 180bookUndergraduate Access to the University of California After the Elimination of Race-Conscious PoliciesNina Robinson — University of California Office of the President — March 2003
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  179. 182webUndergraduate Admissions: Local EligibilityUniversity of California — May 31, 2007
  180. 183webThe Master Plan RenewedUniversity of California — July 1987
  181. 184press releaseFreshman admission of GTO studentsUniversity of California Office of the President
  182. 185webUC system fall '07 freshman admission numbers upMarisa Agha — The Press Enterprise — April 5, 2007
  183. 186newsRanking California high schools: These public schools outperform on UC admissionsHanna Zakharenko — March 5, 2026
  184. 187newsUC admission rates fall to lowest levelsSharon Noguchi et al. — July 2, 2015
  185. 188webUniversity of California. Admission by Exception.
  186. 189newsUC system admits largest, most diverse undergraduate classJuly 20, 2021
  187. 191webU.S. Census Bureau QuickFacts: California
  188. 192webU.S. Census Bureau QuickFacts: United States
  189. 193webUC schools harm local students by admitting so many from out of state, audit findsTeresa Watanabe — March 29, 2016
  190. 194webGov. Brown says 'normal' Californians can't get into Berkeley, a problem some Californians blame on BrownRy Rivard — January 22, 2015
  191. 195webLegislators crafting deal to reduce numbers of out-of-state students at University of CaliforniaMichael Burke — May 28, 2021
  192. 196webState Auditor: UC Wrongly Admitted Well-Connected Students, 55 at BerkeleyJocelyn Gecker et al. — September 22, 2020
  193. 197webUC admitted 64 well-connected or rich students over more qualified ones, audit findsTeresa Watanabe — September 22, 2020
  194. 198webThe University Of California System 'Unfairly' Admitted 64 Well-Connected Students, State Audit FoundElana Lyn Gross
  195. 199webSPARC Innovator: University of California (July 2006)Association of Research Libraries — July 2006
  196. 200webUC Open Access PolicyUniversity of California
  197. 201citationUC and the SAT: Predictive Validity and Differential Impact of the SAT I ad SAT II at the University of CaliforniaSaul Geiser et al. — University of California, Office of the President. — October 29, 2001
  198. 202webOffice of the National Laboratories UCOP
  199. 203newsCalifornia Is Surprise Winner in Bid to Run Los AlamosWilliam J. Broad — December 22, 2005
  200. 204webDivision of Agriculture and Natural ResourcesJanuary 5, 2022
  201. 205webUniversity of California 4-H Youth Development ProgramAgriculture and Natural Resources, University of California
  202. 206web4-H ThriveUniversity of California, Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources
  203. 207web2013 Best Medical Schools2012
  204. 208webU.S. News Best Hospitals 2012–13: the Honor RollAvery Comarow — July 16, 2012
  205. 209newsDespite state budget crunch, UC runs 'Fantasy Island' stationSteve Geissinger et al. — Bay Area News Group — April 14, 2008
  206. 210newsCalifornia Signs Chile Aid AccordDecember 7, 1963
  207. 211webUC ONLINE AND THE ECOSYSTEM OF ONLINE EDUCATION IN THE UC SYSTEM