UC is a public land-grant research university system in the state of California, United States, that was established in 1850. There are nine campuses in the system: Berkeley, Davis, Irvine, Los Angeles, Merced, Riverside, San Diego, San Francisco, Santa Barbara, and Santa Cruz, as well as a number of research institutes and academic exchange programmes. As the state's land-grant university, the system is known as the System.
This institution was established on March 23, 1868, and first operated out of the city of Oakland until relocating to the city of Berkeley a few years later. Many branch sites and satellite programmes were formed throughout the years as a result. UC President Robert Gordon Sproul remained in his position as chief executive of the UC system, while Clark Kerr was appointed as the first chancellor of UC Berkeley and Raymond B. Allen was appointed as the first chancellor of UCLA. This reorganisation began in March 1951, when the University of California began to separate itself from its campus in Berkeley. However, opposition from Sproul and his friends caused the 1951 restructuring to be halted, and it was not until Kerr replaced Sproul as UC President that the university system was able to evolve into what it is now. It was during this time period that chancellors were selected for new campuses, and each was given a higher level of authority.
In the current academic year, the University of California has ten campuses with a combined student population of 285,862 students. The university also includes 24,400 faculty members, 143,200 staff people, and more than 2.0 million living graduates. This year, the university celebrated the opening of its newest campus in Merced, California. UC San Francisco is the only school that enrols solely graduate and professional students in the medicine and health sciences. Nine campuses enrol both undergraduate and graduate students. Except from that, the UC Hastings College of the Law, which is situated in San Francisco, is legally linked with the University of California but, aside from sharing a name, is completely separate and distinct from the rest of the university system. The University of California is a component of the state's three-system public higher education plan, which also includes the California State University system and the California Community Colleges system, which is outlined in the California Master Plan for Higher Education (CMHE). According to state law, the University of California is controlled by a Board of Regents, which maintains its independence from the rest of the state government. UC additionally runs or co-manages three national labs for the United States Department of Energy: the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), and the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) (LANL).
The University of California, via its schools, institutes, and alumni, has established itself as the most extensive and sophisticated postsecondary educational system in the world, generating approximately $50 billion in economic effect each year. The majority of UC campuses are consistently ranked among the greatest colleges in the world, according to major magazines and publications. Eight of the campuses, including Berkeley, Davis, Irvine, Los Angeles, Santa Barbara, San Diego, Santa Cruz, and Riverside, are classified as Public Ivies, making California the state with the greatest number of such institutions in the country. Berkeley, Davis, Irvine, Los Angeles, Santa Barbara, San Diego, Santa Cruz, and Riverside are all considered Public Ivies. A vast number of notable faculty members teach on UC campuses in practically every academic subject, with UC academics and researchers winning a total of 71 Nobel Prizes by the year 2021.