HAYWARD -- Arjen Perry thinks now is "just about the right time" to start preparing for college. He is 13.

"Four years of high school will go by fast," he said.

Arjen, who attends San Lorenzo's Bohannon Middle School, is one of about 50 middle school students from San Lorenzo, Hayward and Union City in a writing program offered this month through the University of California system.

Like his peers in the "Summer CUBS" program, Arjen aims to be the first in his family to attend college. He introduces himself as "Arjen Perry, screenwriter-to-be."

The free three-week course, taking place at Chabot College in Hayward, is part of the UC system's Early Academic Outreach Program and focuses on improving students' writing, reading and critical thinking skills. This year, the emphasis is on persuasive writing.

"I've learned about stuff that I've never even thought of, like including my feelings in what I write," Arjen said during a brief break from class.

He talked in a shade-dappled courtyard at Chabot with his new friend, Erik Contreras, 12, a student at Winton Middle School in Hayward.

Erik, who wants to be a civil engineer, said pressure from "family, relatives" to attend college may be building up too early for him but he is enjoying CUBS.

"You get to meet new people from other schools as you learn," he said.

"Coming here changed my whole perspective on writing," he added, pointing to a persuasive argument he wrote in favor of young people carrying cellular phones for safety.

To get into CUBS, students had to be in the UC outreach program at their schools. To get into the program, students must be from low-income families and their parents cannot have attended college, said Jorge Melgoza, the program's regional coordinator for southern Alameda County.

The program generally is provided in schools that have not performed well historically, according to a pamphlet from the university system. Ten middle schools and five high schools in Hayward, San Lorenzo and Union City participate in the outreach program. San Leandro High School also participates.

The summer writing course is just one phase of the close academic guidance by the program that students across the state are getting from the seventh grade to UC acceptance.

San Leandro High's head counselor, Nancy Johnson, said the number of the school's graduates accepted to UC campuses is increasing steadily -- 8.3 percent in 2001, 10 percent in 2002 and 13.6 percent in 2003. And she attributes much of that success to the individual attention students get from the outreach program.

"(Melgoza) does a lot of things that we don't do," she said while managing an avalanche of paperwork and a constant flow of student traffic in her office on the last day of school in June.

Students must maintain at least a 2.8 grade-point average -- the minimum required to enter the UC system -- to stay in the program, Melgoza said.

"We do hold all the students accountable, and we don't hold their hands," he added.

Students who are in the program throughout high school are twice as likely to finish the course work required to get into UC schools, according to the university.

But the program's ability to reach students soon might be hindered.

Gov. Gray Davis' state budget proposal in May called for a 50 percent cut to UC outreach programs overall, said UC spokeswoman Lavonne Luquis. Actual cuts to the early academic program remain "up in the air" until a state budget is finalized, she said.

Already, there are nearly twice the number of applicants for the summer writing program from the ranks of the outreach program that can be accommodated, Melgoza said.