Student leaders at Chico State University, and on the other 22 campuses in the California State University system, feel like Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has pulled sort of a good news/bad news joke on them.

The good news is the governor apparently is going to do what the students have asked, but the bad news is what he's doing is not what the students want.

In his State of the State address Wednesday, the governor announced his budget, which will be released today, plans to establish a continuing annual 10 percent increase in student fees.

The governor said the predictable increase will allow students to rationally plan their budget, as opposed to years past when the fees could fluctuate in no predictable way.

Up until this academic year, the California State Student Association, the statewide lobbying body for CSU students, has staunchly fought every fee increase, regardless of cause or circumstance.

This year, according to Julie Lewis, a political science major at Chico State who is the elected student director of legislative affairs for the campus, the CSSA changed its position.

Lewis, who besides her Chico State post is also a member of the CSSA board of directors, said the students recognized, given the budget, nobody was going to listen to a no-fee-hike position.

"The whole student fees thing is something we (student leaders) have been struggling with," she said Thursday.

However, last fall the CSSA board passed a resolution urging the state to adopt a policy that would result in fee hikes that are "predictable and moderate," according to Lewis.

She said the governor seems to be adopting a plan that is predictable, but from the students' point of view, anything but moderate.

"I think we were looking between a 3 percent to a 7 percent hike a year," she explained.

Beyond that, the students had a plan for gradually increasing student fees that would top out when the student-paid fees equal one-third of the cost of their education.

Lewis said right now student fees amount to between "18 and 22 percent" of the total cost of their college education.

She is concerned, among other reasons, because the continuing hikes have no planned ceiling.

"It would just keep going up 10 percent, 10 percent, 10 percent," she said.

So far, according to Lewis, the governor hasn't made any effort to discuss the proposed fee-hike plan with the CSSA or any other student group.

"I think we would be very, very happy if he did attend those meetings and talked to us. I've got the feeling he is a big K-14 education guy, not a big higher-education guy," she said.