In 1957, the California State Legislature established what was then called Stanislaus State College as the 15th campus of the CSU system. Because Turlock was better known at the time for its turkeys than its aspirations towards higher education, Clark Kerr highlighted this event in his memoirs as an example of how the state colleges had become vulnerable to pork barrel politics in the state legislature. This was one of several reasons behind the creation of the California Master Plan for Higher Education of 1960.