The news of profound spending cuts to California's public higher education system fell hard Wednesday on millions of students, as university officials spelled out the grim math: College prices will rise, while programs will be scaled back or shut down.

Lawmakers, who had been fighting for weeks to write a budget that solved a $38.2 billion shortfall, struck a deal Tuesday that carves deeply into all three tiers of public higher education -- the University of California, California State University and the California Community Colleges.

To help cover more than $700 million in cuts, fees will increase dramatically at all institutions, making the price of a degree from a California university more expensive than ever.
"It looks like we are going to be the first generation in this state to see a restriction on higher education instead of expansion," said Mohammad Kashmiri, a UC Berkeley law student who has been fighting fee increases. "If we are going to get this economy going again, it makes no sense to cut higher education. This is the worst possible time to make college less affordable."

As costs climb, college applicants will find themselves competing for fewer slots.

CSU leaders already warned that as many as 30,000 students may not be admitted in the next academic year. UC officials now are considering enrollment caps for freshmen, transfer students and graduate students next year, making the selective system even more exclusive.

Lawmakers approved $268 million to fund enrollment growth at CSU and UC this academic year, but intend to freeze it at that level.

Reacting to the budget deal, UC President Richard Atkinson ordered a 30 percent increase in student fees. Atkinson's decision, though widely expected, boosts fees 5 percent in addition to a 25 percent increase approved two weeks ago by the UC Board of Regents.

The new undergraduate price tag for one year at a UC campus is $4,984; for graduate students, it's $5,219. The boost also applies to professional programs, such as law school and nursing.

Eight UC students, including Kashmiri, have sued the regents to roll back the higher fees. They will make their case to a San Francisco judge Aug. 13.

Like UC, the state's 23 CSU campuses will ask their students to pay 30 percent more, which comes on top of a 10 percent increase for the spring semester. Undergraduates will pay $2,046 for a year; graduate students will owe $2,256.

And at California's 108 community college campuses -- a key entry point to the state's higher education system and home to more than 3 million students -- fees will go up to $18 per unit from $11. That, however, is less than the $24 a unit proposed by Gov. Gray Davis in January.

For 120 community college students in the San Joaquin Valley, the bad budget news was compounded by UC's announcement that it will not open a new campus in Merced next fall.

Those students -- guaranteed seats at the new school as transfers from community college -- will be forced to make alternate plans. Forty students were set to transfer from Fresno City College alone, said the school's spokeswoman, Cris Monahan-Bremer.

A $4 million cut ordered by lawmakers will keep UC Merced closed to undergraduates at least until the fall of 2005, though construction and faculty hiring will continue.

That delay means Crystal Wuebker, 22, must postpone her plans to transfer from Merced College to the new campus to get a computer engineering degree. She said she will likely bide her time by taking a few more courses at the community college.

"It's disappointing, but I sort of knew it might be risky with a new campus opening during a budget crisis," Wuebker said. "I'll deal with it."

UC had planned to open the school next fall to 1,000 students; now it will see no more than a few dozen doctoral students who transfer with professors hired by the campus, UC Merced spokesman James Grant said.

"Preparing for a one-year delay is not very much when you consider the duration of the project," Grant said. "We are building a campus to last for centuries."

As for the transfer students like Wuebker, Grant said "we will do everything we can to make sure their education stays on track."

Also cut: money for CSU and UC programs that prepare and recruit underserved students in high schools, with UC's outreach budget halved by $33.3 million.

Atkinson said the cuts to outreach are "deeply distressing" because UC has relied on the programs to maintain diversity on campuses since affirmative action was banned from university admissions in 1996.