Within weeks of starting college at a small private school in Southern California, Vanessa Stumpf knew she'd made a mistake. She loathed Los Angeles, hated her tiny campus and longed to be at a large, diverse, public university.

Stumpf, determined to leave, called University of California, Davis - which had rejected her freshman application - and grilled admissions officers on how she could get in.

Their answer: community college.

Stumpf left Pitzer College after one semester, moved to Davis and signed up for courses at American River College.

"Some people were incredulous that I would go to a (community college)," Stumpf says. "They thought I was going to do myself in."

In September, Stumpf, 19, will get her second chance at a large, public university when she transfers to UC Davis. She was among more than 7,600 transfer applicants to UC Davis this year - a 13 percent jump over last year and the largest pool of transfer hopefuls ever for the campus.

As the state's ongoing budget crisis siphons away dollars for public higher education, competition is tougher than ever to get into one of UC's eight undergraduate campuses. Slots at the 23-campus California State University also are becoming harder to secure. Fees have increased, and likely will again, while enrollment at UC and CSU must remain frozen for at least one year.

Enter the 109 community colleges - by far the cheapest higher education deal in the nation, even if Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's bid to raise fees to $26 per unit from $18 is adopted.

The community colleges and their open-door system, already an important pipeline to four-year universities, could become even more critical for students seeking baccalaureate degrees if Schwarzenegger's proposal to divert would-be UC and CSU freshmen to community colleges for two years is widely followed.

Hundreds of Sacramento-area community college students like Stumpf will make the leap to four-year universities this fall; most will go to nearby UC Davis and CSU Sacramento. But the new set of future transfer students as envisioned by Schwarzenegger will put additional pressure on the schools and their counselors for the next few years.

"This is a short-term solution," says Steve Boilard, director for higher education in the state Legislative Analyst's Office. "In two years, there will be an expectation that these students will be accommodated at UC or CSU."

The governor - hoping to save nearly $50 million - has asked that the 109 community colleges absorb as many as 7,000 freshmen who would have otherwise gone to UC or CSU. UC officials have already obliged, slashing the size of the 2004 freshman class by roughly 400 students per campus.

UC Davis, for example, offered more than 2,400 applicants the option of attending community college first with a guarantee that a slot would be reserved for them their junior year. Schwarzenegger's proposal would waive fees for students who accept the offer.

No one can predict how many would-be UC and CSU students will forgo other four-year institutions to start at community college, but it's likely that most of them - just like students who planned to start at community college - will take more than two years to plow through general education and other lower division courses necessary to move up.

Valerie Pong, 20, managed it. A student at Sacramento City College, Pong will transfer to UC Davis or UC San Diego this fall as a junior majoring in sociology. From her first semester at City College, Pong consulted counselors who helped her design a course load that would satisfy UC basic requirements, as well as the specific classes she would need to major in sociology.

"It was always my goal to go to UC, but when I finished high school I didn't know at all what I wanted to do," says Pong, who juggles a 30-hour work week with classes and studying. "I took a ton of classes at City and figured things out."

Pong, like most students who transfer, relied heavily on a Web site that tells students whether their community college courses will count for credit in a certain major at UC and CSU. Pong credits her own organizational skills and initiative for keeping her on track and earning the grades she needed.

Students at the four campuses that make up the Los Rios Community College District - American River, Sacramento City, Cosumnes River and Folsom Lake - have full-time counselors to help, as well as Linda Case, a UC Davis transfer counselor who floats among the campuses. Sierra College students in Rocklin also have a UC Davis counselor.

James Mar, transfer director and counselor at American River College, says students usually struggle with transferring when they fail to keep up with changes to UC and CSU requirements. Often, they end up taking unnecessary courses or ones that don't count.

"It's crucial for counselors and students to be current on the information," Mar says. "Requirements for certain majors can be very dynamic."

Lori Estrada, a 31-year-old UC Davis junior who transferred from American River College last fall, didn't get accepted on her first try, despite sticking to a set regimen of courses.

"I didn't take a bunch of frivolous classes," Estrada says.

What made the difference on Estrada's second shot was the "transfer agreement" she signed with UC Davis. Those agreements, signed usually a year before a student is ready to transfer, map out exactly the courses necessary for the major the student will pursue, as well as the GPA required to compete with other transfer applicants. Those who live up to the agreement get in.

Case, the transfer counselor, says about half the students who come to UC Davis from Los Rios and Sierra districts have signed the agreements.

Even with on-site counselors, transfer agreements and loads of information to help students, one higher education analyst says bureaucratic obstacles remain.

The biggest, says Boilard of the Legislative Analyst's Office, is the crazy quilt of course names and numbers that vary at every community college campus, UC and CSU.

"Poli Sci 1 at one community college may not be equivalent to the Poli Sci 1 class at UC," Boilard says. "It's a confusing, almost Byzantine matrix of how classes equate with one another. There's nothing that's uniform at almost every step."

College officials acknowledge that the transfer process could be made more seamless and point to the transfer agreements and series of workshops and help sessions available to students as efforts to do that. What makes no sense to them, however, is Schwarzenegger's budget proposal that could eliminate state funding for the programs designed to ease transfer. The biggest loss, they say, would be the counselors like Case who are one of the most effective tools in helping students prepare.

"It's a real dilemma," says Yvonne Marsh, assistant vice chancellor for student affairs at UC Davis. "We constantly have students in the transfer pipeline. Without those funds to devote, we worry about what will happen to those students."