I had always wondered how a university or college could just begin. I mean, most schools have been around for more than 100 years, and the most recent schools seem to have all started in the 50s or 60s, not last year. Maybe that is why the newest University of California (UC) school is having trouble geeting students to enroll. Or maybe it is because it is in Merced, which is seriously in the middle of nowhere. (It is, for all intents and purposes two-thirds of the way to Yosemite from San Francisco.)

Update: Haha. I just read the first paragraph of a similar story in the New York Times. "Contrary to popular opinion, the newest campus of the University of California is not in the middle of nowhere, nor is it in the middle of a cornfield." Only someone from New York would insist that it is not in the "middle of nowhere." Believe me, it is. (Although people from that region do commute daily to the SF bay area.)