Education in California

The California education system consists of public and private schools in California, including the University of California system, private colleges, and secondary and primary schools.

Universities and colleges

The main state research university is the University of California (UC), which employs more Nobel Prize laureates than any other institution.Fact|date=October 2008 The University of California has ten major campuses. [ [http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/campuses/welcome.html University of California - Campuses - The University of California campuses provide environments that foster world-class educational and research opportunities, generating a wide range of public benefits and services ] ] Each major UC campus is headed by a chancellor that is appointed by the UC Board of Regents. [ [http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/chancellors.html University of California News Room] ]

The ten major campuses of the University of California are located in Berkeley, Los Angeles, San Diego, Davis, Santa Cruz, Santa Barbara, Irvine, Riverside, Merced and San Francisco. The University of California, San Francisco, teaches only graduate health-sciences students. The Hastings College of Law, also in San Francisco, is one of UC's four law schools. The UC system is intended to accept students from the top 12.5% of college-bound students, and provide most graduate studies and research. The University of California also administers two national laboratories directly for the United States Department of Energy: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. The university indirectly manages Los Alamos National Laboratory through Los Alamos National Security, LLC.

The California State University (CSU) system is also considered one of the better educational systems in the world. With over 400,000 students, the CSU system is the largest university system in the United States. It is intended to accept the top one-third (1/3) of high school students. The universities within CSU are primarily intended for undergraduate education, although many of the larger campuses, such as Cal Poly, CSU Long Beach, CSU Fullerton, CSU Fresno, San Diego State, and San José State (the oldest public university in California), are becoming more research oriented, especially in applied sciences. A marked change and a shift from the California Master Plan for Higher Education began in 2007 as the CSU now grants doctoral level degrees (Ed.D.) in education. Kevin Starr (the State Librarian) and others have argued that this small change is the beginning of a larger reorganization of higher education in California.

The California Community Colleges system provides lower division "General Education" courses, whose credit units are transferable to the CSU and UC systems, as well as vocational education, remedial education, and continuing education programs. It awards certificates and associate degrees. It is composed of 109 colleges organized into 72 districts, serving a student population of over 2.9 million.

Notable private universities and colleges include Stanford University, Touro University, the University of Southern California (USC), the University of San Francisco (USF), Santa Clara University, St. Mary's College, the University of the Pacific, the Claremont Colleges, Occidental College and the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) (which administers the Jet Propulsion Laboratory for NASA).

California has hundreds of other private colleges and universities, including many religious and special-purpose institutions. This leads to many unique entertainment and educational opportunities for residents. For example, Southern California, with one of the highest densities of post-secondary institutions in the world, has a very large base of classically-trained vocalists that compete in large choir festivals. In the Bay Area and near Los Angeles, there are numerous art and film schools, including the California College of the Arts and the CalArts Institute.

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