Colleges and universities
Nearby are Stanford University and the University of California at Berkeley, though the city itself has several institutions of higher learning. San Francisco State University is part of the California State University system and is located near Lake Merced. The school has close to 30,000 students and awards undergraduate and master's degrees in more than 100 disciplines. The City College of San Francisco, with its main facility in the Ingleside district, is one of the largest two-year community colleges in the country. It has an enrollment of about 100,000 students, and offers an extensive continuing education program. Founded in 1855, the Jesuit-run University of San Francisco, located on Lone Mountain, focuses on the liberal arts, and is one of the oldest universities established west of the Mississippi.
The University of California, San Francisco is one of the ten campuses of the University of California system, and is San Francisco's second largest employer. It is solely dedicated to graduate education in health and biomedical sciences and is ranked among the top-five medical schools in the United States. It also operates the UCSF Medical Center, ranked among the top 10 hospitals in the United States. A 43-acre Mission Bay campus, complementing its original facility in Parnassus Heights, opened in 2003. It contains research space and facilities to foster biotechnology and life sciences entrepreneurship and will double the size of UCSF's research enterprise. The University of California, Hastings College of the Law, founded in Civic Center in 1878, is the oldest law school in California and claims more judges on the state bench than any other institution.
Visual arts are served by the San Francisco Art Institute, an accredited school of contemporary art, and Academy of Art University, the largest private school of art and design in the U.S. The San Francisco Conservatory of Music, the only school of its kind on the west coast, grants degrees in orchestral instruments, chamber music, composition, and conducting. The California Culinary Academy, associated with the Le Cordon Bleu program, offers programs in the culinary arts, baking & pastry arts, and hospitality & restaurant management.
(Source: Wikipedia.org)
