[2] USIU's roots date back to Balboa Law College, which was founded in 1924 in downtown San Diego by Leland Ghent Stanford.
[3] In 1952 it changed its name to California Western University and moved to a historic oceanfront campus in San Diego's Point Loma neighborhood.
[3] California Western School of Law kept its separate name and identity and remained on the Point Loma campus until 1973, when it moved to downtown San Diego.
[3] In the early 1980s, USIU held a broadcast license to operate KUSI-TV, a startup UHF television station in San Diego.
[6] In 1986, Rust was still breaking new ground for buildings and maintaining focus on further expansion in Latin America, the Middle East, Europe and Russia.
[9][6][10] After 37 years of leading the university and enduring several rocky financial episodes, Rust was removed from all governing power by the board of trustees in 1990.
[12] The university was able to continue and restored smaller athletic programs for soccer, tennis and cross country competing in the NAIA.
However, the September 11 attacks and subsequent loss of international student enrollment tuition proved to be final for USIU.
[15] However, in 1990 after operating for 10 years and producing two NHL Pittsburgh Penguins players — Darren Lowe and Pat Mayer — the program was dropped due to the rising costs associated with "traveling 2,000 miles to compete".
Notable faculty included Jamie Foxx, Lem Burnham, and Igor Ansoff, the "father of Strategic Management".