Students at Cal State San Marcos and throughout the CSU system are bracing for an expected fee hike that would force them to come up with an extra $474 in instructional fees for the coming year.

Trustees are set to vote on the 30 percent increase when they meet Tuesday and Wednesday in Long Beach. The hike would come on top of a 10 percent fee increase imposed in December.

Standing in line at the San Marcos campus this week to collect catalogs and literature for orientation, some students said they felt sure that university trustees will approve the increase, aimed to help offset cuts in education funding prompted by the state budget crisis.

"Are you asking how I feel about it?" said student Kara Bernal of San Clemente, who's transferring in from Saddleback College to study for a career as an elementary school teacher. "We don't like it."

For Jennifer Brewer, a student from Temecula transferring to the university after two years at Mt. San Jacinto College, the increase would mean spending a lot less on herself while adding 12 to 15 hours a week to her job waiting tables at a Fish House Vera Cruz.

At Cal State San Marcos, the $474 hike would bring mandatory local and state fees to $2,720 a year, a cost officials say puts CSUSM among the lowest third in the CSU system. The increase would keep the system as a whole among the lowest in cost compared with similar public institutions throughout the country, officials said.

The CSU calculates the total bill for students ---- including books, lodging, food, transportation as well as fees ---- remains a bargain at about $13,600 per year. The latest numbers available put the lowest cost in the nation at North Carolina State at Raleigh, where two semesters amount to $11,800.

The student fee, which goes toward the cost of instruction, is paid by all 440,000 enrollees on the 23 campuses of the CSU. A third of the state fee hike would be set aside to cover the increased costs for the neediest students.

But students at Cal State San Marcos say don't forget to add in the cost of parking, a non-mandatory fee but one assessed to nearly all the students on campus. Parking fees jumped from $124 a year to $306 last spring, and the pain is sharper, students say, because it looks like they're being asked more than others to bear a larger share of the burden for the state's budget problems.

"They say educate, educate, educate," said Brewer of state policy-makers, "and then they take the support away. It makes no sense."

The CSU system calculates that the governor's proposed budget will cut funding levels by 10 percent. Aside from that, the system, which has long prided itself on automatic access to everyone who graduates in the top 30 percent of their high school class, may be admitting 8,000 fewer eligible students in January as it slows its growth rate.

Noting that at least one campus, San Diego State University, has already closed the door to new students for the semester beginning in January, Richard West, the CSU's chief financial officer, said, "I think there are students who would want to come to the CSU in the spring who won't be admitted, and yet that does not mean they won't be admitted the next semester or that they won't have other options to continue their education."

As things stand now, West said in an interview Wednesday afternoon, the system is going to fall at least $447 million ---- and perhaps $517 million ---- short. The CSU's overall budget is about 2.9 billion. The income from the fees would come to about $190 million, with $63.4 million of that set aside for the lowest-income students.

Meanwhile, the student government at Cal State San Marcos plans to send at least one elected officer to Long Beach on Wednesday to make his feelings known. Erik Roper, the vice president for external affairs for Associated Students Inc., said among his special concerns is that fee hikes tend to drive minorities and the economically-disadvantaged out of the system. He said hikes will bring the "unintended consequence" of reversing efforts toward diversity on the campus.

And the mood among the students, he said, is one of resignation.

"It's very hands up in the air, what can you do?" Roper said.

At the Dome, a popular gathering spot on campus for students, Matthew Guglietti, a senior high-tech management major from Oceanside who works nearly full time, amplified Roper's view. "We're all too busy to fight, " he said. "In the extreme sense," Guglietti added, "you almost have to wonder if they want the people educated, because education should be on the top of the list as far as financing is concerned."

In addition to the likely increase in the CSU fees, the regents of the University of California system meet next week to consider a hike of as much as 30 percent in student fees, bringing the average cost to $4,984 a year for undergraduates. That hike would come in addition to the $405 annual increase that became effective in the spring.

The nine-campus UC system faces some $360 billion in cuts to its state-funded budget of around $2.6 billion. The UC is also talking about limiting enrollments, noting that 5,000 fewer new freshmen and transfer students would save $45 million in state funds.