University of California, Los Angeles

University of California, Los Angeles
Former names
List
  • Los Angeles branch of the California State Normal School (1881–1887)
  • Los Angeles State Normal School (1887–1919)
  • Southern Branch of the University of California (1919–1927)
  • University of California at Los Angeles (1927–1958)
MottoFiat lux (Latin)
Motto in English
"Let there be light"
TypePublic land-grant research university
Established1881 (1881) (May 23, 1919 as a UC campus)
Parent institution
University of California
AccreditationWSCUC
Academic affiliations
Endowment$9.79 billion (FY2024)
(Total Endowment Assets)
ChancellorJulio Frenk
Vice-ChancellorDarnell Hunt
Faculty7,941
Administrative staff
32,883 (fall 2023)
Undergraduates33,040 (fall 2023)
Postgraduates13,636 (fall 2023)
Other students
1,372 (fall 2023)
Location,
California
,
United States

34°04′20″N 118°26′34″W / 34.0722°N 118.4427°W / 34.0722; -118.4427
Campus
  • 467 acres (189 ha)
  • Large city
NewspaperDaily Bruin
ColorsBlue and gold
   
NicknameBruins
Sporting affiliations
Mascots
Websiteucla.edu

The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in the Westwood neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, United States. Its academic roots were established in 1881 as the southern branch of the California State Normal School, which is now San José State University. The campus was transferred to the University of California to become its southern branch in 1919, making it the second-oldest of the 10-campus University of California system after the University of California, Berkeley.

UCLA offers 337 undergraduate and graduate degree programs in a range of disciplines, enrolling about 31,600 undergraduate and 14,300 graduate and professional students annually. It received 174,914 undergraduate applications for Fall 2022, including transfers, the most of any university in the United States. The university is organized into the College of Letters and Science and twelve professional schools. Six of the schools offer undergraduate degree programs: Arts and Architecture, Engineering and Applied Science, Music, Nursing, Public Affairs, and Theater, Film and Television. Three others are graduate-level professional health science schools: Medicine, Dentistry, and Public Health. Its three remaining schools are Education & Information Studies, Management and Law.

UCLA student-athletes compete as the Bruins in the Big Ten Conference. They won 126 NCAA team championships while in the Big Ten and the Pac-12 Conference, second only to Stanford University's 128 team titles. 436 Bruins have made Olympic teams, winning 284 Olympic medals: 141 gold, 74 silver and 69 bronze. UCLA has been represented in every Olympics since the university's founding (except in 1924) and has had a gold medalist in every Olympics in which the U.S. has participated since 1932.

As of October 2025, 19 Nobel laureates, 11 Rhodes scholars, 10 astronauts, 3 Turing Award winners, 2 Dan David Prize winners, 2 chief scientists of the U.S. Air Force, 1 Pritzker Prize winner, 7 Pulitzer Prize winners, 2 U.S. poet laureates, 1 Gauss prize winner, and 2 Fields Medalist have been affiliated with it as faculty, researchers and alumni. As of April 2025, 61 associated faculty members have been elected to the National Academy of Sciences, 17 to the American Philosophical Society, 34 to the National Academy of Engineering, 49 to the National Academy of Medicine, 29 to the National Academy of Inventors, and 71 to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.