Local community college students say their meeting with legislators in Sacramento last week is but one chapter in a political science lesson about power.

About 50 students from State Center Community College District joined a crowd estimated at between 5,000 and 10,000 to make a point against higher college fees they pay for fewer class offerings.

Assembly Member Sarah Reyes, D-Fresno, a former State Center administrator, is blunt about students' wishes: "What they are asking is not to cut the budget at all. That's impossible. If we don't cut them, we will have to find money somewhere else in the state budget, and the budget is being cut everywhere. To say to one group, 'We won't cut you,' is untrue.

"It is going to become tougher to find a class, and they are going to pay more."

Still, Reyes says, students' effort to apply political pressure in the Capitol was worthwhile: "Any time they can make legislators stop and take notice is a good thing. They need to continue to have that voice heard as we go into the budget session." Edgar Castellon, 19, a student senator at Fresno City College, was among a delegation that met with four legislators, including Reyes.

Two of the four offered "sugarcoating," he says. They told students that legislation for higher community college fees and reduced state support would die in committee.

"Reyes was direct," Castellon says. "She told us that for them to do anything to help us, they needed six Republicans. She said they probably wouldn't raise fees above $25 per unit, but there will be a raise for sure."

Natalie Alquinzon, 21, Associated Students president at Reedley College, remembers a similar visit last year, when students were paying $11 per unit and heard that charges would rise to $24. "It ended up being $18," she says.

"I don't know how far we can go," she says. "We can tell them what we need, but in fact it is not going to go that way unless something changes."

On the way back to Fresno, Alquinzon, who is studying to become a teacher, was tired but not discouraged.

"We voiced what we wanted to be heard," she says. "Prices, books, materials. ... We really got our point across."

For George Kutnerian, 20, Associated Students president at Fresno City College, this is just the beginning, for both the community college funding issue and what he hopes will become his career in government and politics.

"We can't let the process end," Kutnerian says. "If we just march and make it an annual thing, the politicians will pick up on that. If we don't come back, they are not going to care. We have to be persistent."

Kutnerian wants at least two more major student efforts this year in Sacramento. He doesn't want the student lobby and demonstration written off as "an annual thing, a tradition. Who cares?"

The delegation made specific recommendations, including availability of more than one copy of required texts for each class for students to borrow.

And now what?

"What we can do is register more students to vote, so legislators know we have the power," Kutnerian says. "I think mass opinion supports education. I think it's the politicians who aren't receptive to education issues."

He mentions police, firefighters and auto mechanics among the vital workers trained by community colleges. He mentions more than 2 million community college students in California.

"Students need to realize they need to vote and make a difference in the system," he says.