Santa Rosa Junior College's tradition of offering an affordable education to every qualified student may be threatened by the state's financial crisis, according to school officials.

They say the governor's proposed budget, unveiled earlier this month, would require more belt-tightening and probably would trigger another cut in enrollment at the 86-year-old junior college.

It also could bring a shift in the type of student attending the popular school.

SRJC enrollment dropped 6 percent in the fall when fees were raised from $11 to $18 a unit; enrollment in for-credit classes fell from 25,337 the previous year to 23,736.

Students turned away from Sonoma State and other university campuses because of tuition hikes and enrollment cutbacks could add to the number of full-time students at SRJC. College officials also expect a drop in the number of part-time students -- many of them working people with little flexibility in scheduling, low-income students on tight budgets and downsized workers going back to school to learn new skills.

"It will be a different reality for students going into 2004 and 2005," said Ricardo Navarrette, vice president of student services. "This college is a strong, resilient institution, and we will survive. But it won't be exactly the same as it was in the past decade."

Santa Rosa Junior College, the third-largest community college in the state according to the Chancellor's Office, has the equivalent of 20,000 full-time students enrolled this semester in academic, vocational and personal enrichment classes.

Last year, the state reduced the school's budget by about $4 million and raised per-unit fees from $11 to $18. The fee increases, however, didn't replace the lost income because that money goes to the state, not directly to the college.

To balance its budget, SRJC cut 10 percent of its course offerings, launched a hiring freeze, drew down its emergency reserves and trimmed spending on supplies and other noncritical items.

This year, the state appears ready to restore about $1.3 million, but will make no adjustments for inflation.

SRJC started the 2003-04 school year with a $3.2 million deficit. Officials project a roughly $4 million deficit in 2004-05.

More cuts will have to be made, but there is little fat left to cut, SRJC President Robert Agrella said.

"We have a hiring freeze, and supplies have been cut. The faculty has accepted larger class sizes," Agrella said. "We cut almost 600 sections of classes in the fall, but we can't continue to do that."

Instead, the college will look at downsizing management and nonteaching staff. If enough money can't be saved, classroom hours will have to be reduced even further, said Ron Root, vice president of business services.

"You get to the point where you don't want to destroy the reason why students are coming, so budget cuts from here on out are principally going to have to focus on noninstructional areas," Root said.

For 2004, the governor's budget proposes raising fees from $18 to $26 a unit for undergraduate students and from $18 to $50 a unit for those who have bachelor's degrees but have returned for retraining.

If that happens, student enrollment is projected to drop another 10 percent, despite the grants, loans and Doyle scholarships available, and the greater number of potential students who would have attended CSU and UC campuses, Navarrette said.

"The school isn't open to everybody if the cost of education is so high those in the lower socioeconomic band can't come," Root said. "We have scholarships and grants available that may be able to mitigate some of this, but there is still going to be a hit."

It's a worrisome trend because the state funds community colleges according to student population.

"Budget cuts mean the college begins to cut programs and services, which means it's less attractive to students, who don't come, which results in less revenue to the district, which results in more budget cuts," Root said.

"We live and die on enrollment," Root said. "An institution going down in enrollment is on a death trend."