In addition to the University of California’s
ten campuses, higher education in the state includes the 23 campuses
of the California
State University System, the 108 campuses of the California
Community College System, and independent institutions throughout
the state.
The
California Master Plan for Higher Education, adopted by the
state in 1960, helps integrate the missions of these colleges and
universities in meeting the educational needs of Californians.
The Master Plan designates UC as the primary state-supported
academic research institution. It also gives UC exclusive jurisdiction
in public higher education for doctoral degrees (with the exception
that CSU can award joint doctorates) and for instruction in law,
medicine, dentistry and veterinary medicine.
The Master Plan also established an admissions
principle of universal access and choice, assigning UC to select
its freshmen students from the top one-eighth (12.5%) of the high
school graduating class and CSU from the top one-third (33.3%).
The California Community Colleges were to admit any student capable
of benefiting from instruction. The Master Plan was subsequently
modified to provide that all California residents in the top one-eighth
or top one-third of their high school graduating classes who apply
on time be offered a place somewhere in the UC or CSU system, respectively.
The community college transfer function is an essential
component of this commitment to access. Under the Master Plan, UC
and CSU set aside upper division places for and give priority in
the admissions process to eligible California Community College
transfer students.
The Master Plan is one of California's truly outstanding
accomplishments, because it helped in major ways to create the nation's
largest and most distinguished system of higher education. Furthermore,
California's economic vitality and its unequaled climate of opportunity
are due in large part to the innovation, creativity, research and
educated workforce that are the products of its higher education
institutions.
In the 1970s, and again in the 1980s, the Legislature
reaffirmed its support for the Master Plan as the state's blueprint
for providing high-quality and affordable higher education to California's
residents. It has served the state well for more than four decades,
embodying a strong commitment on the part of the state and the segments
to provide educational opportunity and make it affordable for all
qualified Californians.
The legislature is now considering a Master
Plan for Education, Kindergarten through University that would
incorporate California's elementary and secondary school system
into the current higher education plan.
Report
on the Review of the Master Plan (July 2002)
UC's Mission
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