Ventura County Community College students are getting a brief reprieve from the $7-per-unit fee increase included in the state's 2003-04 budget.

The new $18 fee was supposed to kick in for the fall semester, but students who showed up Monday for the first day of walk-in registration at Moorpark, Oxnard and Ventura colleges paid the old fee of $11 per unit.

Community college officials said they couldn't legally collect the increased fee until the new fee is signed into law. It wasn't clear Monday whether Gov. Gray Davis, who signed the state budget Saturday, had also signed the trailer bill that provides for the fee increase.

Once the law is signed, it would take the Community College District a day or two to reprogram its computers to reflect the increase. All students who take classes this fall will have to pay the higher fee, regardless of when the bill is signed.

Students who already have paid the lower fee will be billed for the difference in costs, Deputy Chancellor Mike Gregoryk said. Those bills are expected to go out in the next couple of weeks. Students will have a "reasonable amount" of time to pay the bills, but will be dropped from their classes if the fees aren't paid, he said.

"We knew this would be a hassle," Gregoryk said, but the district can't do much to avoid it.

District officials had hoped to begin collecting the higher fee from the start of online and phone registration July 14, but the state Community College Chancellor's Office warned districts that collecting the fee before it was approved would be illegal.

The Chancellor's Office advised districts to warn their students the fee increase was coming. Students also can voluntarily pay the higher fee now and avoid getting a bill in the mail, said Aiden Ely, a communication specialist with the state Chancellor's Office.

"The colleges must collect this fee for the fall term," Ely said.

Ventura College student Mike May, 20, is unhappy with the fee increase. May, who is taking 13 units in the fall, said the class fees, on top of the student health and parking fees, are too high.

"Over $200 for community college seems ridiculous," he said.