South High School senior Julia Cazares hadn't planned on taking summer school this year, but she is now.

It was the only time she could get her English composition and speech classes at Bakersfield College.

Cazares was one of a dozen students sitting in her high school career center computer lab last week, ready to register on the opening day of fall registration for graduating high school seniors.

By the time they navigated through the Web site-based registration, many ended up disappointed, said South High School college technician Maribel López.

"May 5th was the first day of registration, at 8 a.m. By 8:10 many of the classes were filled," López said.

Existing BC students had earlier registration dates, and for all other students, open enrollment began Saturday.

One reason the college classes are filling up so quickly is that BC is offering 1,351 class sections in the fall, 254 fewer sections than last fall, said BC's Vice President of Student Learning Ken Meier.

The Kern Community College District's board of trustees finalized the fall layoffs of 30 faculty members on Friday. An unknown number of part-time professors will not be rehired in the fall.

BC chemistry professor Greg Baxley said chemistry teachers escaped the layoffs, but classes did seem to fill up faster this semester than in the past.

"As far as I know all the chemistry classes at this campus are full," he said.

English professor Pamela Boyles has no room in summer or fall in any of her classes. Sections fill up every semester, but this fall more students are expected to be turned away than ever before, she said.

"The students, besides frustration, they feel like it's just hopeless," Boyles said.

Meier said the Community College League of California is projecting the equivalent of 3,000 full-time students in Kern County, including those at Bakersfield, Taft and Cerro Coso Community colleges, will be turned away because of expected state budget cuts.

"I don't think it is going to be that bad because we are being careful. We certainly don't like turning away students. That is not our mission," Meier said, but "some students are going to be turned away and some students are not going to get classes at the times they want."

He said students have been turned away for lack of classes this year and last, and despite the reduction of sections, the college still projects gaining 3.5 percent more students in the fall compared to last fall.

That's because higher capacity classes are replacing low enrollment classes, Meier said. For example, a music appreciation lecture class could draw 30 to 45 students while a sophomore music major class may only have eight students.

The college receives its funding based on meeting growth targets. If the enrollment is less than the targets, then funding drops, but if it exceeds the targets, then funding stays the same, Meier said. This academic year the roughly 15,000-student college has taught, but not been funded for the equivalent of 706 full-time students, Meier said.

"If we don't reach our enrollment targets, our budget will go down and as a consequence we will be laying off more people," Meier said. "This is why we need to be very careful about being very precise in our enrollment strategy, so we can hit our target without going significantly over because ultimately that is a drag on our short-term budget."

Meier said prospective students should keep trying to enroll because he is hoping to add 75 to 100 more class sections to the fall schedule in the next month depending on the outcome of the projected 2003-04 budget, expected to be released by Gov. Gray Davis today.

School districts across the state face tough decisions on how to balance their budgets as the state Legislature and governor have all but promised to cut next year's education budget.

KCCD Faculty Association President Steve Eso said the district should be looking for other places to cut, like reducing the number of days administrators work in a year, before eliminating classes. Eso has four classes scheduled for next semester, two 45-student psychology classes and two 35-student statistics classes. All four are full.

Faculty members in Eso's department have been told they will be laid off.

"By trying to just hit our student enrollment targets and not go over, the district is planning on taking the maximum amount of money from the state possible while planning to serve the absolute minimum number of students," Eso said. "Frankly I think parents and students ought to be upset about this because it means hundreds or thousands of students will be turned away in the fall."

López said she is telling students to crash courses on the first day of class and to try to get added to the class by the teacher. And in the meantime, she's encouraging students to get 12 units of course work in order to qualify for the financial aid many of them need.

"I'm suggesting for them to get a career class or a PE class to get a full load," López said.

South High senior Cazares did ultimately get 12 units of classes for the fall.

"Good luck to everyone who is still trying to register, because they really need it," Cazares said.