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| UC's
Mission
UC Budget |
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)
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