When it comes to scraping up the money to send her children to college, DeAnna LaFave, a part-time bookkeeper for a small construction company, is willing to do whatever it takes.

Worst-case scenarios include asking her mother for a loan or taking out a line of credit on her family's Santa Rosa home.

"If we have to borrow, then we will. ... We don't want to tell them no," said LaFave, whose children are 24, 17, 16 and 5.

Exactly how much money she and her husband, George LaFave, a general contractor, will need to send their children to a state college or university remains a mystery. Fee increases in the California State University and University of California systems have fluctuated from year to year, depending on the economy.

A proposal by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger could change that by making increases more predictable for students and parents footing the bills.

His plan would link increases to per-capita personal income and limit them to 10 percent a year.

To DeAnna LaFave, president of the Parent Teacher Club at Montgomery High School in Santa Rosa, it sounds like a good idea.

"At least that way, you are able to plan as best you can," she said. "People need to know how to plan their budget. I wouldn't know how much it (her children's education) would be right now."

Full-time undergraduate students at UC or CSU campuses saw a 30 percent fee increase during the 2003-04 academic year and a 10 percent increase during 2002-03. Before that, fees at state colleges had not risen in seven years, and actually fell 5 percent in 1998-99 and in 1999-2000.

More increases are expected this year for the two university systems, as well as for community colleges, which raised fees from $11 to $18 a unit this fall.

Saying he wants to end the "boom-and-bust cycle of widely fluctuating fees," Schwarzenegger, a Republican, first addressed the fee cap proposal a week ago in his State of the State address.

Since more details were released in his budget proposal Friday, the state's higher education community has been buzzing.

"What's good about this is people are talking about a long-range plan for accruing money because right now we wait until there's a problem and then we have to rush to solve it," said Susan Kashack, a spokeswoman for Sonoma State University.

The current student fee, or tuition, for a full-time SSU student is $3,010 a year, which includes $964 a year in campus-based fees.

Kashack had reservations about how Schwarzenegger's fee-cap proposal, which would raise fees even during good economic times, might affect lower-income students.

"The negative side could be that not everyone could afford fee increases, even though financial aid is available for the neediest," she said. "Even though the increases are limited to 10 percent, that might keep some people from attending college. There's always a group of students who don't quite make it."

State Sen. Wes Chesbro, D-Arcata, said he liked the idea of creating a fee cap linked to per-capita personal income.

Per-capita personal income in California increased by 47 percent between 1990 and 2002, the last year for which data from the U.S. Commerce Department is available.

"I like the idea of creating certainty and predictability," Chesbro said. "On the other hand, I think it's a little bit disingenuous of the governor to say we'll increase the fees dramatically above the cost of living this year."

SSU students on campus during the winter break Monday were still reeling from hefty fee increases imposed in the fall.

David Wolfe, a junior and a history major, gets most of his financial support from his parents, and also works to help pay his college costs.

"I think a cap is good," he said. "There needs to be some stability in these increases. You can't just hike them up wherever you feel like it. I can see the damage and hurt it does to a lot of students here."

He and his parents, who live in Greenbrae, can shoulder the recent fee increases, Wolfe said. But for some of his friends, who are struggling to get by, even an increase of $50 or $60 can make the difference between continuing in school or dropping out.

Sarah Parker, a senior and a business major, also likes the idea of a cap. She is putting herself through school by working and taking out student loans. When the fee increase hit suddenly last year, she had to put the difference on her credit card. She could have saved the money if she had known ahead of time, Parker said.

Matt Vukicevich, who heads the counseling department at Cardinal Newman High School in Santa Rosa, said a common topic of conversation among guidance counselors and parents is how to plan for tuition costs.

"The word 'cap' is good because you know it can't go more than that, and you're hopeful that some years it won't be up to the cap," he said. "I don't think it's a bad thing. It's a cush deal right now. Californians are pretty spoiled in terms of what we have to pay for education."

Craig Carroll, a father of three who lives in Petaluma, is among those parents trying to plan ahead.

Even though his eldest child's education will be paid for by the military, he worries about paying for his two other children, a high school junior and an eighth-grader.

Without a cap, he said, college tuition rises and "where does it all stop? Is it just going to be like a mortgage and keep going up?"