University of California System

University of California System, system of state-supported universities in California. One of the largest institutions of its kind in the world, the university was established in 1868, when the state assumed control of the College of California. The College of California was chartered as a private institution in 1855. Instruction began at Oakland in 1869, and the university was transferred to the Berkeley campus in 1873. The largest number of courses are offered at Berkeley and Los Angeles.

The system includes the University of California, Berkeley (founded in 1868), in Berkeley; the University of California, Davis (1905), in Davis; the University of California, Irvine (1965), in Irvine; the University of California, Los Angeles (1919), in Los Angeles; the University of California, Riverside (1954), in Riverside; the University of California, San Diego (1959), in La Jolla; the University of California, San Francisco (1873), in San Francisco; the University of California, Santa Barbara (1909), in Santa Barbara; and the University of California, Santa Cruz (1965), in Santa Cruz.

Other facilities of the University of California include a veterinary school at Davis; dental schools at Los Angeles and San Francisco; medical schools at Davis, Irvine, Los Angeles, San Diego, and San Francisco; law schools at Berkeley, Davis, and Los Angeles; and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at La Jolla. The university operates more than 100 research facilities in the state, including Lick Observatory on Mount Hamilton, near San Jose. The university also manages three national laboratories for the federal government: Los Alamos National Laboratory in Los Alamos, New Mexico; Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, in Livermore, California; and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, in Berkeley.