Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's budget proposal dealt higher education a body blow on Friday, calling for a 9 percent cut in the budgets of both the California State University and University of California systems. Those cuts will be offset, slightly, by student fee increases of 10 percent. Parents and college students across the state will have to swallow hard to adjust to the increases, which come on top of sharp increases imposed since 2002.

The real pain, however, won't come from those fee increases, which still leave the cost of a California public college education -- $5,482 for an undergraduate at UC, $2,251 for CSU -- a bargain relative to other states. The most painful part is the governor's proposal to make it harder for students to qualify for Cal Grants, the scholarship aid that has since 2000 provided a clear path of opportunity to students whose limited means might otherwise have proven a barrier to college.

Schwarzenegger wants to lower the income ceiling for applicants -- now about $66,000 for a family of four -- by 10 percent. And he wants to "decouple" Cal Grant award amounts from tuition, meaning that no matter how much college fees may be rising, the state's primary financial aid award could, for now, be frozen. He also wants to end the practice of providing more generous grants to students who want to enroll in more costly private institutions.

Meanwhile, the governor is also telling the UC and CSU systems to divert 10 percent of their undergraduates -- some 7,000 students -- to the California community colleges, where they would ostensibly be educated more efficiently for their first two years before transferring to a four-year college. That's a fine idea so long as the community colleges have the capacity to educate them, but that's a big "if" in California right now.

Schwarzenegger has proposed some funding to help finance this added burden, but the community college system has been underfunded for so long, with some of its districts even now being monitored by the state for potential insolvency, and most already canceling classes and turning away students, that one wonders whether it will be enough.

Then there is the governor's proposal to dramatically increase, by 44 percent, the cost of a graduate school education. It makes perfect sense to do that for professional schools -- law, business, medicine -- that confer degrees that bring with them a strong likelihood of higher lifetime earnings. The price of a UC law or medical degree is known nationally as a steal.

The same cannot be said for the state's education schools, which confer teaching certificates. Teacher candidates in the CSU system would see their annual fees rise from $2,256 to $3,158. What will that do to the state's still significant need for good teachers to staff its K-12 schools?

Schwarzenegger's desire to bring public college fees more closely in line with those in other states is sensible. His pledge to even out the "boom and bust" cycle of fee-setting -- he's pledged increases of no more than 10 percent a year -- would lend stability to both the system and to parents who want to plan for the future.

But if California is to maintain one of its finest traditions -- that of an affordable college education to all who seek one -- the Legislature will have to help the governor rethink his proposals to limit financial aid, and reduce the budget cuts to the system. It would be idiocy to divest in the institutions that stand the greatest chance of pulling California out of its financial sinkhole.