The California Master Plan: History
In the late 1950s, California higher education leaders knew they were facing a student enrollment boom unlike any they had ever seen. The Baby Boom generation was on the precipice of college age and, while only 4 percent of college-age Americans actually went to college in 1900, that figure had soared to 39 percent by 1960. The best demographic projections available at the time predicted enrollment in California public colleges and universities was going to triple between 1960 and 1970.
They were wrong: It quadrupled. In a single decade, California colleges and universities added more than 600,000 students to their halls. Through a miraculous combination of good leadership, timely planning, and a common understanding that what was good for young people was good for the state, California was ready for this “Tidal Wave” of students.
Things could have worked out differently. In the 1950s the state was racked with in-fighting among its public institutions, plagued by parochial political interests directing resources from seats of power in the Legislature, and lost in looking for a leader who could unite disparate warring factions. The state had commissioned blue
