University of California Los Angeles

Governor Frederick Low favored the establishment of a state university based upon the University of Michigan plan, and thus in one sense may be regarded as the founder of the University of California.

 In 1867, he suggested a merger of the existing College of California with the proposed state university. On October 9, 1867, the College's trustees reluctantly agreed to merge with the state college to their mutual advantage, but under one 

condition—that there not be simply a "Agricultural, Mining, and Mechanical Arts College", but a complete university, within which the College of California would become the College of Letters (now the College of Letters and Science).

 Accordingly, the Organic Act, establishing the University of California, was signed into law by Governor Henry H. Haight (Low's successor) on March 23, 1868

The University of California's second president, Daniel Coit Gilman, opened the Berkeley campus in September 1873. Earlier that year, Toland Medical College in San Francisco had agreed to become the University's "Medical Department"; it later evolved into UCSF. In 1878, the University established Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco as its first law school. The California Constitution

 was amended to designate Hastings as the "Law Department" of the University of California in consideration of a $100,000 gift from Serranus Clinton Hastings. It is now known as Hastings College of the Law. UC Hastings is the only University of California campus which is not governed by the Regents of the University of California.

In August 1882, a southern branch campus of the California State Normal School opened in Los Angeles.[9] The southern branch campus would remain under administrative control of the San Jose State University (California's oldest public university campus, established in 1857) until 1919, when by act of the

 California state legislature the school merged with the University of California in Berkeley, California, and was renamed the Southern Branch of the University of California. This Southern Branch became UCLA in 1927. In 1944, the former Santa Barbara State College—renamed UC Santa Barbara—became the third general-education campus of the University of California system.

In 1905, the Legislature established a "University Farm School" at Davis and in 1907 a "Citrus Experiment Station" at Riverside as adjuncts to the College of Agriculture at Berkeley. In 1959, the Legislature promoted the "Farm" and "Experiment Station" to the rank of general campus, creating, respectively, UC Davis and UC Riverside.

In 1932, Will Keith Kellogg donated his Arabian horse ranch in Pomona, California, to the University of California system. However, the land remained largely unused and ownership was transferred to the California State University system in 1949. Kellogg's old ranch became the California State Polytechnic University, Pomona.

The San Diego campus was founded as a marine station in 1912 and, in 1959, became UCSD. UC established additional general campuses at Santa Cruz and Irvine in 1965. UC Merced opened in fall 2005.

The California Master Plan for Higher Education of 1960 established that UC must admit undergraduates from the top 12.5% (one-eighth) of graduating high school seniors in California. Prior to the promulgation of the Master Plan, UC

 was to admit undergraduates from the top 15%. The University does not currently adhere to all tenets of the original Master Plan, such as the directive that no campus was to exceed total enrollment of 27,500 students in order to ensure quality. Three campuses, Berkeley, Davis, and Los Angeles, all currently enroll over 30,000.