With a total of 23 campuses all over California, the California State University is the largest and most diverse university system all over the United States. Forty three thousand employees comprise its faculty and staff and 412 thousand students are distributed in all its 23 campuses. The university system claims to provide accessible and affordable education that is focused on providing high quality learning to its students.
The CSU faculty groups are composed of highly educated mentors who mostly work in full time capacity under the university’s administrative system. To ensure continuity of service during the Cold War, the California State University obliged its faculty to sign an agreement with a pledge of loyalty that they will serve the university for a certain given period as required by the administration. Such policy was not widely accepted by the faculty groups so that in some campuses like the CSU Fullerton, the faculty refused to sign the tenure agreement.
The salary for the faculty ranges from 74 thousand dollars (as of 2007) which was lobbied for 20.7 percent increase by the faculty union in an agreement with the CSU administration. This agreement on salary increase however was withdrawn due to the decrease in annual state funding for the school system from 2008 up to 2011. Salaries of campus presidents have been raised however to more than 300 thousand dollars.
To provide education to students who are not in a position to attend in-campus formal classes, the CSU has established off campus branches. The educational programs provided in these off campus branches are degree courses of the same level as that earned by regular students of the California State University. One former off campus branch of CSU, the California State University in Channel Islands has been transformed into a regular campus. Two more off campus branches in the counties of Riverside and Contra Costa also became independent campuses of the CSU.