The University of California, Irvine (UCI or UC Irvine) is a public research university located in Irvine, California. It is one of the 10 campuses in the University of California (UC) system. UC Irvine offers 87 undergraduate degrees and 129 graduate and professional degrees. The university is classified as a Research I university and in 2017 had $361 million in research and development expenditures, according to the National Science Foundation. UC Irvine became a member of the Association of American Universities in 1996 and is the youngest university to hold membership.[10] It is considered to be one of the "Public Ivies," meaning that it is among those publicly funded universities thought to provide a quality of education comparable to that of the Ivy League. The university also administers the UC Irvine Medical Center, a large teaching hospital in Orange, and its affiliated health sciences system; the University of California, Irvine, Arboretum; and a portion of the University of California Natural Reserve System. UC Irvine set up the first Earth System Science Department in the United States.