Davis highlight
University of California, Davis
A public research university founded in 1908 as the University Farm, now California's largest UC campus with nearly 40,000 students.
UC Davis began in 1908 as the University Farm, a land-grant research station authorized by California to serve agricultural education and advancement. The first class opened on January 5, 1909, with eighteen students on a 779-acre parcel near Davisville in Yolo County. The location was chosen because its soil, climate and proximity to irrigation water met the precise criteria set by the University Farm Bill of 1905.
Over more than a century, UC Davis expanded from agricultural training into a comprehensive research university with six professional schools, 101 graduate degree programs, and more than 100 majors. Today it is the largest of the University of California campuses by enrollment. The university operates research centers in wine science, marine biology, sustainable agriculture, veterinary medicine and environmental science, with undergraduates working alongside faculty on investigations into wine production, bee genetics, rice and strawberry breeding, and solutions to climate and food security challenges.
A university town built around research and education creates a particular kind of family structure: younger households, more graduate students with young children, academic schedules that differ from the standard work year. Planning for the people who depend on you is what life insurance is for, and families in college towns often find that a twenty- or thirty-year term policy sized to the mortgage and education costs covers the years when the household's income would matter most.