When the University of California at Los Angeles put Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-Calif.) on the cover of this winter's alumni bulletin, it was a tribute to a distinguished graduate who is so close to his alma mater that he named his dog Bruin, after UCLA's revered symbol.

But the cover story, which was engineered in part by the University of California's government relations office in Washington, was also a shrewd ploy to cement relations with a key member of the House Appropriations Committee.

As Congress takes up President Bush's fiscal 2005 budget proposal, which cuts some basic research programs vital to universities, the higher education community is using every lobbying tool at its disposal to protect its interests.

On the line are billions of dollars in federal support for medical, defense, space and physics research, as well as special "earmarks" for agricultural research stations, buildings and other local projects.

As recently as the 1980s, lobbying by higher education was a two-horse operation, involving a few large universities and a handful of K Street firms.

Colleges and universities still shy away from organized political fundraising and campaign advertising -- the stock in trade of modern lobbying. Nonprofit status or state laws prohibit many of them from engaging in it.

But that has not precluded the higher education industry from greatly increasing its presence in Washington.

"At the end of the day, having campaign dollars in your back pocket isn't the only way to get attention and help in Congress," said A. Scott Sudduth, the University of California's vice president for government relations.

Last year, more than 150 colleges and universities shelled out tens of millions of dollars to lobby on spending issues, as well as on legislation affecting student visas, stem cell research, student aid and homeland security.

Van Scoyoc Associates Inc., for instance, has 55 university clients. Lawmakers and congressional staffers troop to breakfasts several times a week at the firm's Constitution Avenue offices, at the foot of Capitol Hill. These can be discussion forums on educational issues, or fundraisers for supportive members.

In the 2002 election cycle, Van Scoyoc employees made 493 donations, totaling about $250,000, to candidates or political parties.

Individual professors and college administrators have also been increasing their political donations, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

Gifts by university employees to presidential candidates totaled more than $2.4 million in the first three quarters of 2003, according to the center. The leading recipient was Howard Dean, who collected $719,000, with large amounts coming from employees of the University of California, Harvard, Emory, Stanford and Dartmouth College.

Close behind was Bush, whose $680,000 in contributions drew heavily from the University of Texas, Vanderbilt University, University of Chicago, University of Cincinnati and Stanford.

The Washington lobby shop of PodestaMatoon received $300,000 in the first six months of 2003 to represent the Science Coalition -- 60 top research universities that seek increased funding for basic research. It staged science seminars for lawmakers and periodic "breakfasts of champions" honoring members, including Lewis, who have supported the cause of science in legislation.

"Our message is our muscle," said Michelle Tessier, a PodestaMatoon lobbyist.

The stakes are unusually high this year. As Congress prepares to reauthorize the Higher Education Act, many universities are gearing up for a fight.

Rep. Howard P. "Buck" McKeon (R-Calif.), who chairs the House Education and Workforce subcommittee overseeing postsecondary education, has proposed barring institutions from participating in certain student aid programs if they increase tuition and fees at more than twice the rate of inflation for three years in a row.

"The higher education community is up in arms over this, but the congressman feels this is a crisis and the current situation is unacceptable," said Vartan Djihanian, McKeon's spokesman.

In the budget released Monday, Bush put the brakes on funding for most basic research, providing only small increases for the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation.

Nils Hasselmo, president of the Association of American Universities (AAU), lambasted the research funding proposal, saying it included "a double-digit cut in critical defense research programs essential to the nation's long-term security."

The shifting priorities could affect some of the nation's most prestigious universities. NIH, for example, funds about $270 million a year of medical research at Harvard. The University of California system relies on Washington to finance tuition aid for many of its 150,000 students and to support the system's three national science labs, five medical research centers, agricultural research stations, and numerous graduate and undergraduate programs.

"There are concerns that we're in an environment where we won't see growth in these budgets, and we're certainly worried about that," said Tobin L. Smith, AAU's senior federal relations officer.

The growing budgetary pressures were evident last year when Senate fiscal conservatives blocked Sen. Arlen Specter's bid to add $1.5 billion in NIH funding to a spending bill on the floor. In an interview, Specter (R-Pa.) bemoaned the genteel approach of the higher education lobby on such issues.

"Universities aren't as politically active as they ought to be," he said. "They ought to be identifying the people who voted against NIH funding and going to work in their states. . . . Defense contractors come in with all guns blazing, no pun intended, and really mean business."

But Sudduth, who heads the University of California's nine-person lobbying team in Washington, says his group has rejected forming political action committees or resorting to "hardball" lobbying methods. Instead, he said, the university uses its enormous grass-roots influence in California to further its interests.

Sudduth said the UCLA alumni bulletin's cover story on Lewis, which described the lawmaker as a longtime friend, was coordinated between his office and the UCLA Alumni Association.

As chairman of the House Appropriations subcommittee with jurisdiction over the budget of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the magazine noted, Lewis was able to help UCLA recover from damage suffered in the Northridge earthquake.

"With Lewis's assistance, FEMA funding was secured to assist with the restoration of Powell Library and Royce Hall," the article said.

Lewis now chairs the subcommittee that oversees the Pentagon's research budget, which supports research at UCLA on robotic surgery and nanotechnology.

The new alumni bulletin dubs Lewis the "cardinal from Westwood" (Calif.), a reference to his role as chairman of one of the 13 appropriations subcommittees.

"We happen to think he'd make a great chairman of the Appropriations Committee" after the term of Rep. Bill Young (R-Fla.) ends next year, Sudduth said.