UC Merced sees spike in application numbers
The University of California had a slight decline overall in student applications according to preliminary application numbers for the fall 2025 term, but UC Merced saw an increase in applicants by 57%.
There was a 0.5% dip in applications overall, from 250,436 applicants last year to 249,824 applicants this year. A majority of applicants are first-years, making up 205,158 of the total. The number of California first-year applicants dropped by around 2%, with 3,346 fewer, but the number of first-year international students increased by 8%, or 2,509 applicants.
Hispanic and Latino applicants dropped by 3.6%, or 1,927, but they still make up 39% of first-year applicants from California.
UC Merced saw the largest increase of any UC campus, with 57% more applicants — reaching 51,745 students. UC Merced is the newest UC campus and has the highest admittance rate at 91.7% as of fall 2024’s first-year class. It was recently named the 26th best public school in the country in a U.S. News & World Report ranking.
UC Riverside had the second-largest increase in applicants by 19.6%, totaling 82,904. Additionally, UC Davis experienced a 4.1% rise, receiving a campus record of 120,131 applications.
Startup at UC Berkeley to launch largest climate tech incubator
Bakar Labs, UC Berkeley’s startup incubator, plans to launch a climate technology unit on campus called Bakar Climate Labs, according to the Daily Californian.
A climate incubator is a program that supports climate tech-focused entrepreneurs and businesses.
Bakar Labs will be powered by the California Institute for Quantitative Biosciences (QB3), which is a “multi-UC entity,” according to the Daily Californian. It opened its first Bakar Bio Labs branch in Nov. 2021. The technology was originally developed for health care, with plans to expand to climate health and technology.
“Our goal is to take technologies from academia that have the potential to be transformative and to lower barriers to getting those technologies from an academic lab into a company that can scale it into a solution for a challenge that our society is facing,” David Schaffer, professor of chemical and biomedical engineering, bioengineering and molecular and cell biology and director of QB3 and Bakar Labs, said to the Daily Californian.
The Regents approved the plan for Bakar Climate Labs in May, including the ClimatEnginuityHub, the name of the newest incubator, set to launch in February 2028.
The facility will be 145,000 feet wide, making it the largest incubator for climate technologies, according to Schaffer. It will have solar panels, backup batteries and operable windows to maximize extra energy use.
Bakar Climate Labs has launched a pilot program, currently working with five companies and actively recruiting for more.
When fully launched, Schaffer estimated the lab could incubate about 50-60 companies.
A version of this article appeared on p. _of the Mar. 6, 2025 edition of the Daily Nexus.
