University of California, Irvine

When the Irvine Company donated 1,000 acres for a single dollar and sold another 510 acres to this university-to-be, set up in 1965, today's surrounding city of Irvine was an undeveloped expanse. Some of it, in fact, was Irvine Ranch; today, UCI is the city's largest employer, with 98 advanced-degree programmes, more than 2,600 faculty members and around 27,600 students.