Marlene Dominguez is a typical California State University, Dominguez Hills student — at 32 she’s no longer a teenager, she has two young children and she commutes from another city to the Carson campus.

Under any circumstances, raising two kids and pursuing a graduate degree in Spanish is no easy task. But it could get even more difficult for this South Gate resident and others after the governor unveils his budget proposal today. In his struggle to bring the state’s revenue in line with its spending, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is reportedly planning to recommend fee increases for state residents attending California State University and University of California campuses. Undergraduate students would see their rates rise 10 percent, according to sources cited in the Los Angeles Times ; graduate students, such as Dominguez, would pay up to 40 percent more.

“I don’t think it’s fair,” said Dominguez, who pays for baby-sitting while striving to become a college professor or a social worker. “It would affect my pocket, but I don’t think I’m going to stop coming to school.”

In recent months, CSU and UC students have grown weary of fee hikes and, in some cases, hoarse from protesting. In a little more than a year, tuition at both institutions has risen approximately 40 percent for those seeking their bachelor’s degrees. Since 1992, tuition for full- and part-time undergraduate students has more than doubled. Perhaps no campus feels the pinch of rising costs more than Cal State Dominguez Hills, where 35.5 percent of the total enrollment is Latino. Here, the average age is 27, most commute from low-income neighborhoods and many pay out of their own pockets, according to student body President David Gamboa.

“This is a big concern of mine,” he said, “especially for the students who don’t get financial aid.”

Natalie Lillard, 23, is fortunate enough to receive financial aid in the form of Cal Grants. Should the governor call for a fee increase, she said she hopes federal grants will offset her additional costs, otherwise she could be forced to dip into her monthly paycheck of $365, which is barely enough to buy gas, pay bills and raise her 2-year-old son.

“It could make me have to go to school part-time,” said Lillard, who works on campus, “and I don’t want to do that because I’m really focused on school right now.”

Gamboa said he and other university student body presidents began to suspect more fee hikes were on the way when Schwarzenegger repealed the car tax increase shortly after taking office.

On Thursday, a day before the governor was set to release his spending plan — and with a CSU spokeswoman declining to comment — Gamboa was already organizing a three-day political blitz in February to combat the potential move. Starting Feb. 16, CSUDH’s student government organization will hold a voter registration drive on campus, stage a rally and create a lab allowing students to e-mail and phone their state legislators, he said.

Meanwhile, state universities aren’t the only campuses preparing for a hike. California’s 108 community colleges, which recently saw prices spike from $11 to $18 per unit, may be in store for another boost, this time to $26 a unit.

Officials say approximately 175,000 students were already squeezed out of the community college system prior to the fall semester, though they generally attribute the reduction to slashed course offerings — which were the result of budget cuts. But Cameron Samimi, the student body president at El Camino College, said a fee increase would certainly shrink enrollment at the Torrance-area campus. Colleges lose about 1 percent of their student population for every dollar added to the per-unit price, he said.

“We’re going to lose a lot of students again,” said Samimi, 21. “It’s only hurting the future of California — that’s the way I look at it. But drastic times, drastic measures.”