UC Merced to begin 11th academic year

Classes at UC Merced will begin bright and 7 a.m. Wednesday as the university kick-starts the school year.

A record 6,700 students will attend the university this school year, though that number is much lower than what it anticipated when it opened. More than 90 percent of its students are undergraduates.

The newest campus in the UC system received nearly 20,000 applicants for this school year. Over the weekend, about 2,000 students moved into dorms on campus.

More than 1,000 students graduated from UC Merced in May, marking the 10th year the school was open.

By 2020, Chancellor Dorothy Leland hopes to have 10,000 students enrolled in classes at the university and to expand the campus to accommodate those students – a plan she has dubbed the 2020 Project.

This story was originally published August 25, 2015 at 3:53 PM with the headline "UC Merced to begin 11th academic year."