LONG BEACH -- Eric Guerra, the first in his family to attend college, warned California State University trustees Wednesday that others like him won't get a higher education if the board increases fees by 25 percent.
"CSU has been a champion of providing first-generation students a higher education," the California State University, Sacramento, student said. "Please consider what a fee increase will do to students. Please vote no."

Guerra was among about 250 CSU students and faculty who came to Long Beach Wednesday to protest the governor's proposal to increase the systemwide fees for a full-time undergraduate CSU student from $1,572 this year to $1,968 next year. A full-time graduate student's system-wide fees would rise 20 percent, from $1,734 to $2,082. Campuses also charge extra fees, which average $498 a year.

The Board of Trustees had already decided to postpone a vote on the issue, because the Legislature might make even larger cuts in the the CSU budget.

But students and faculty came anyway, saying this might be their last chance to urge the trustees to cut spending elsewhere to avoid fee increases.

Already, most of their classmates were busy studying for finals. By the time the board meets again, they said, most students would be off campus enjoying summer vacations.

The students and faculty held a noisy rally outside the hushed board meeting. They brandished signs, chanted slogans and swayed to tunes from a rock band.

"All of you know that 80 percent of us are working -- 30 percent of us full time," Artemio Pimentel, CSU student association chairman, told the crowd. "Yet they expect us to pay an additional $500 per year."

Inside the board meeting, Richard West, CSU's chief financial officer, said state college fees would still be lower than those of other state universities, even with the 25 percent increase.

But Bruce Wolfe, a California State University, San Francisco, student, said the comparison didn't take into account California's high cost of living.

"We are not the cheapest school in the country," he told the trustees. "We are the most expensive state to live in. When you add the cost of living and the fees, we will be somewhere in the middle" in higher education costs.

Several trustees said students shouldn't face such large fee increases, especially after a 10 percent hike last year.

"Education is a right, rather than a privilege," Trustee Ricardo F. Icaza said. "We should look at other alternatives."

But West said the only alternative was cutting enrollment. "We just can't keep taking more students if we are not funded," he said.

Trustee Anthony M. Vitti said the board sympathized with the students. But he suggested they take their case to Sacramento.

"That is where the students who are outside (protesting) should be -- appealing to the Legislature to make up for the gap we have to deal with," he said.

Trustees were pleased to see the budget Gov. Gray Davis released Wednesday didn't propose any further reductions in CSU's budget.

But Patrick Lenz, CSU vice chancellor for finance, warned that lawmakers are likely to make even deeper cuts in CSU's budget.

He said the Assembly Democrats' proposal to eliminate an additional $69.5 million from CSU's budget would mean fees would have to rise by an additional 12.5 percent.

The Assembly Republicans' proposal to slice $200 million from CSU's budget would result in an additional 35.8 percent fee increase, he said.

Chancellor Charles B. Reed predicted a "better than 80 percent chance" that the Democrats' cuts would be adopted.

Lisa Canini, a CSU Sonoma student, said trustees should have a "long-term fee policy" that gradually increases the fees.

William Hauk, chairman of the CSU board's finance committee, said the trustees had tried to do that in the past, but lawmakers rejected it.

Despite the grim warnings Wednesday, Guerra said he was optimistic that the trustees would try to help students like him.

"You hope that they will do what is best for California," the Sacramento student said. "We are just saying to them to keep it fair."