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The fictional university used by many shows to extend the life of a High School TV show into the college years. The name "California University" was used by both Saved By The Bell and Beverly Hills 90210, but the term can be applied to any university that allows an ensemble High School show to retain the majority of its cast.
The university is often located within a reasonable distance to the original high school, to allow or imply limited interaction with the parents and old shopkeepers; particularly egregious cases will have the old faculty follow the students to the university — if they were sufficiently a part of the old cast — which makes no sense whatsoever. Despite the fact that the original high school show depicted the cast as a wide range of academic talent, ranging from slacker to valedictorian, all of the principal cast members of the show apply, are accepted, and elect to go to the same university — and often take the same courses.
Examples:
- Beverly Hills 90210
- Boy Meets World (Pennbrook College): High-school principal Mr. Feeney followed along. (Why was a professor grade teacher at a high school? and before that a middle school? Well, he's Mr. Feeney.)
- Also sort-of-parodied with the hilariously named East North Southwestern, where Eric wants to go.
- Buffy The Vampire Slayer (U.C. Sunnydale, which a disclaimer at the end of the credits points out isn't actually real.)
- Subverted in that only Buffy and Willow actually head for college; the rest of the cast all move on with their lives in various ways, with Angel and Cordelia leaving for LA (and Angel's new spinoff) Xander unable to get into any decent school and ending up becoming a carpenter, and Giles finding himself unemployed before eventually opening up a magic shop.
- Oz was at college too, and knew where everything was because all his friends had been attending for a year (he got held back).
- They also show that Willow could have gone to literally any college she desired, even getting an acceptance letter from Harvard. However, she didn't want Buffy to feel lonely, and so chose the local college of UC Sunnydale, which is implied to be at least somewhat subpar.
- Saved By The Bell
- Veronica Mars (Hearst College)
- The Fresh Prince Of Bel Air (ULA)
- Parodied in a Saturday Night Live sketch, as the final episode of a high school drama is being shot. The students will all attend the same college so they can star in the Spin Off sequel, which upsets the actor playing the principal once he realizes that he won't have a part in the new series. The actor attempts to ad-lib lines that would justify his inclusion (up to and including the claim that he never went to college and intends to join his students as classmates), until the director rewrites the scene and kills off the principal off-screen.
- Totally Spies, it was a conscious descion on the girls' part to apply to the same college as they'd miss each other. They were followed there by the series Libby, Mandy, too.
- Averted in (of all places) Dawson's Creek: Joey ends up at the fictional Worthington College while Jack and Jen go to the equally fictional Boston Bay. Dawson ends up in LA (albeit briefly, before dropping out of college) and Pacey doesn't go to college at all. The series had them all meet up a fair bit, but also used several Two Lines No Waiting story arcs.
- The Many Loves Of Dobie Gillis (Possibly the Ur Example, with the kids and some of the teachers moving on to S. Peter Pryor Junior College.)
- Degrassi The Next Generation both averts this and plays it straight. First done with Ellie and Marco attending the University of Toronto (Paige initially attends Banting, but drops out of school and moves in with her friends), then with Emma, Manny, and Liberty all attending Smithdale (which makes little sense in Liberty's case, as she had previously announced that she was going to attend Banting herself). Most characters, however, disappear after graduation, with the exception of a few cameo appearances.
- Surprisingly averted by, of all things, High School Musical, which sends Ryan and Kelsi to Juilliard, Taylor to Yale, Chad and Sharpay to the University of Alberquerque, Gabriella to Stanford, and Troy to U.C. Berkeley (which is, he points out, exactly 32.7 miles from Stanford).
- Uh... The University of Albuquerque
is not real no longer exists. The actual school is the University of New Mexico.
- I think the aversion was that they didn't all end up going to the same college.
- Averted by One Tree Hill where the show skipped four years ahead in time after everyone graduated high school, and instead had them all returning home for various reasons post-college (or for other reasons as not all characters went to college). That fits in with the very nature of the show.
- Averted marvelously in Friday Night Lights, in which seasons three, four, and five are basically being written as one long epilogue to the first two seasons, giving each character a three or four episode long story arc that sends them off the show into post-high school life.
- Real Life - The University of California and the California State University systems boast almost 40 campuses total in the state (not including 100s of smaller sites that house specific facilities). Therefore, for most urban or suburban-dwelling teenagers, there is indeed a "neighborhood" university of this type. They can plan to attend with their close friends, will likely have classes with many people they went to high school with and opt to still live at home with mom and dad (Long Beach State, Cal State Fullerton and Sacramento State being the most typical examples).
- This applies to just about every state university. There are typically honors programs and fellowships to entice the students that might otherwise head off to private schools. Rutgers is dubbed 'the 13th' grade for anyone from Central Jersey, and it can't be too much different for any other state school.
- In the comic strip Safe Havens, the cast initially plans to go to different colleges, but Samantha manages to manipulate them into going to Havens University one by one after all.
- Most of the cast of Gossip Girl wind up attending NYU. There are some aversions however as Nate attends Colombia, Serena attends Brown before dropping out, and Chuck Bass is busy being Chuck Bass.
- The Sweet Valley University series employs this trope, being a sequel to the Sweet Valley High series.
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