Why does UC Merced exist?
Valley politicians like Mr. Cardoza whined about how the UC system had left the Central Valley by the wayside (conveniently ignoring the presence of UC Davis smack in the middle of the Central Valley…ooops, my bad, it’s in the lower end of the Sacramento Valley, so that doesn’t count b/c, you know, it’s not in the San Joaquin Valley). And their whining also conveniently ignored CSU campuses in the San Joaquin Valley like Stanislaus State, Fresno State and CSU Bakersfield. So they cooked a deal with land developers in Merced and shamed other lawmakers into going along with the notion that a whole lot of real estate in the San Joaquin Valley needed to be made into a 10th UC campus. Real estate that’s not close to much of anything. Except maybe cows. Certainly not close to transportation systems. Certainly not part of a community fabric, being in the sticks. What kinds of opportunities were passed up to make Mr. Cardoza look good? The chance to put a UC campus in downtown Fresno. Downto
