The University of California Libraries: A Plan for Development (1977)

I. The University and Its Libraries 5
For the University, it predicted an enrollment during that period
to 136,000 students if the existing admission patterns were followed;
to lessen the impact on the University and the cost to the State of
this rapid growth, however, it recommended that some of these students
be diverted to the other two segments, the state colleges and junior
colleges. Assuming certain steps were taken, the Plan predicted that
the number of students could be modified to 118,750. For existing UC
campuses, the Plan recommended that enrollments in no case exceed
27,500. This meant that new campuses would be needed to accommodate the
increase, and the Plan recommended that three new campuses already
approved by The Regents be "completed without delay." Enrollments for
these campuses were to be planned as follows:
San Diego-La Jolla 7,500
Southeast Los Angeles 12,500
South Central Coast 10,000
Strategies for Growth. Meanwhile the University had been planning
its own strategy for coping with the influx of new students, and in the
same momentous year of 1960 produced a Growth Plan, initiated by President
Clark Kerr, which projected enrollment beyond 1975, to the year
2000. If the University accepted the same proportion of California's
student population in that year as 1960, the University's Growth
Plan predicted that total enrollment would grow to 214,000 students,
over four times as many as the existing number. To help accommodate
them, the 1960 Growth Plan proposed expanding the capacity of three
existing campuses--Davis, to 15,000; Santa Barbara, to 15,000; and
Riverside, to 10,000--as well as building the three new campuses already
planned. Among other features of this plan was the provision
that all campuses, with the exception of San Francisco, were to be
developed as general campuses, offering undergraduate liberal arts
instruction as well as graduate and professional programs.
During the early 1960's, the University worked feverishly to cope
with the pressures of enrollment and expansion. By 1965, the number of
students had grown by over 50 percent since 1960, and the three new
campuses had opened their doors to the first students: UC San Diego in
1964, UC Irvine and UC Santa Cruz in 1965. In 1966, however, this