California's public universities have accepted reality. There will be no hairbreadth escape from this budget crisis. No soft landing.

But for the University of California and the state university system, this isn't just a matter of making hard choices. It's about fighting to avoid losing years of hard-fought growth and progress.

That is going to ripple down to thousands of California households, including many in this Inland region. Hard choices will have to be made there, too.

We see this as a large long-term concern for Inland families with college-age children: The new grand plan is to divert a significant number of UC- and CSU-qualified freshmen to community colleges. But by doing that, the state is giving itself exactly two years to solve this budget mess. That's how long it will take determined students to exhaust their options at community college and apply for transfer to a UC or CSU campus to finish up.

Those four-year schools will have to be ready for them when they start showing up. A lot of student careers are at stake.

That means the state will need to have its budget back in balance 27 months from now, so all these colleges can get back on their fast-growth track to serve the needs of our next generation.

The governor's proposed budget creates a challenge to quick recovery, though. It would increase UC undergraduate fees by 10 percent, and grad students' fees by up to 40 percent. Classes at UC campuses would get larger, and statewide, some 3,200 qualified freshmen would be shunted off to community colleges instead.

UC officials now say the critical flaw in that formula is the 40 percent fee hike for grad students. Many grad students actually work off this bill by teaching undergraduate courses - which means the UC itself is the one paying their fees. There's no savings to be made in that; in fact, the UC actually loses money. So UC regents may raise undergraduate fees even more, perhaps by 15 percent.

Thus, instead of a $500-a-year increase, undergrads would be looking at perhaps $750 a year, beginning as soon as summer.

There are other ripple effects, too. UC President Robert Dynes announced this week that while half of all UC students qualify for financial aid - loans, grants, scholarships - increases to the financial aid pool "will not be as generous as in past years."

For many, this won't be an easy time. The task isn't just to get through it, but to get through it quickly.