During World War II, a group of local Santa Barbara leaders and business promoters were able to convince the state legislature and governor to transfer Santa Barbara State College to the University of California in 1944. The period after World War II brought a great expansion in the number of state colleges. Additional state colleges were established in Los Angeles, Sacramento, and Long Beach from 1947 to 1949, and then seven more state colleges were authorized to be established between 1957 and 1960. Six more state colleges were founded after the enactment of the Donahoe Higher Education Act of 1960, bringing the total number to 23.
