What Happened to the University of California?

05/07/2026 Peter G. Klein

Peter Klein traces the ideological transformation of the UC system from a world-class research institution to a cautionary tale of government-subsidized capture, arguing that the real culprit isn’t California’s culture but the funding, ownership, and governance structure that insulates universities from market accountability and rewards ideological conformity.

Recorded in San Diego, California, on April 25, 2026.

The Mises Institute is a non-profit organization that exists to promote teaching and research in the Austrian School of economics, individual freedom, honest history, and international peace, in the tradition of Ludwig von Mises and Murray N. Rothbard.

Non-political, non-partisan, and non-PC, we advocate a radical shift in the intellectual climate, away from statism and toward a private property order. We believe that our foundational ideas are of permanent value, and oppose all efforts at compromise, sellout, and amalgamation of these ideas with fashionable political, cultural, and social doctrines inimical to their spirit.