Education in L.A.

( The University of California )

The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), founded in 1919, is Los Angeles’s leading public university, and the largest campus in California. UCLA’s faculty includes many Nobel Prize winners and world-renowned scholars in many fields. Besides UCLA, three other

University of California (UC) campuses serve the Los Angeles region: UC Irvine (1965), UC Riverside (1954), and UC Santa Barbara (1909).

There are also five campuses of the California State University (CSU) system:

• California State Polytechnic University,


• Pomona (1938), CSU Dominguez Hills (1960),


• CSU Fullerton (1957), CSU Long Beach (1949),


• CSU Los Angeles (1948), CSU Northridge (1958), and


• CSU San Bernardino (1965).

In addition, there are numerous community colleges. Together, the Los Angeles region’s public universities and colleges enroll hundreds of thousands of students per year.

The city is also home to several major private colleges and universities.
The University of Southern California (USC), founded in 1879, is the oldest private university in California, with two campuses near the heart of downtown Los Angeles.

USC is known for its world-renowned School of Cinema-Television, strong science, engineering, and social science departments, and winning athletic teams. It is also the largest private employer in the city.

The California Institute of Technology (1891, also known as Caltech), in Pasadena, is one of the leading science and engineering universities in the world. Caltech operates the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

The JPL is most widely known for its development of spacecraft and the management of several space probe programs. Pepperdine University (1937), a private institution affiliated with the Churches of Christ, occupies a spectacular campus overlooking the Pacific Ocean in Malibu.

The Claremont Colleges, located in the city of Claremont in the San Gabriel Valley east of downtown Los Angeles, is a group of six affiliated schools:

• Claremont Graduate School (1925),


• Claremont McKenna College (1946),


• The science and engineering-focused Harvey Mudd College (1955),


• The liberal arts-focused Pitzer College (1963),


• Pomona College (1887), and


• The all-women’s Scripps College (1926).

Loyola Marymount University (1911) is the oldest and most prestigious Catholic university in southern California. Occidental College, founded in 1887, and Whittier College, founded in 1887, are other highly regarded private colleges in Los Angeles.