"Still Lead the Nation in Providing Top-Flight College Education to the Masses"

"Students like Ms. Lopez are one reason that Irvine's student body includes more students with Pell grants than all eight colleges of the Ivy League combined.

"It's true that the California colleges have a built-in advantage: the many high-performing students from immigrant families who live there. But that's hardly the only reason for the economic diversity. The University of California’s aggressive steps to recruit, admit, enroll and support low-income students are also crucial.

"'It takes a lot of systematic effort,' Mr. Gillman, the Irvine chancellor, said.

"And yet American society seems to be making less of this broad effort than it once did."

David Leonhardt in The New York Times calls the University of California an "Upward-Mobility Machine."