U.C. Merced? U R Kidding

Charlotte Allen visited the newest University of California campus outside Merced, and writes a mostly sympathetic article for The Weekly Standard about the campus. Since I spent a lifetime teaching in the higher ed. systems of CA, I read it to see what was shaking at U.C. Merced. The answer: not much.

The campus exists in order to placate the political passions of the state's growing Hispanic electoral bloc. There was clearly no other need for it. I think a very good argument can be made for reassigning it to the California State University system which Ms. Allen correctly describes as:

A 23-campus network of workaday comprehensive universities such as Fresno State, which lack doctoral programs and elaborate research facilities and where admissions standards are considerably lower than they are for the University of California.

Allen's description of the CSU fits U.C. Merced, and U.C. Riverside, too. Both should be reassigned to that system.