"Back in 1960, California adopted the Master Plan for Higher Education. It was a three-tiered system. At the top was the research and Ph.D.-granting University of California. Next was what is now renamed the California State University. Finally, there were the two-year community colleges.
This plan has worked extremely well and has provided many of the scientists, engineers, doctors, agricultural specialists and others who have made this state an economic and innovative powerhouse that accounts for 13 percent of our nation's gross domestic product. It became a model emulated by other states and, to an extent, other nations."