On the eve of its 150th anniversary, the University of California (UC) is one of the world’s premier academic institutions. This project will take a Big Data approach to exploring the history and role of the UC campuses in the state of California. The project will produce an unprecedented large-scale empirical examination of the university’s funding, students, professors, institutional structure, and the university’s impact on socioeconomic mobility and economic development. Data will include digitization of previously published financial and administrative statistics, student records, cour