Local Democratic legislators are up in arms over an agreement Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger struck this week with state university officials that would cut millions in funding for the University of California and California State University systems, hike fees and redirect thousands of students to community colleges this year in exchange for additional funding in future years.

In a statement released Tuesday, the Republican governor hailed the agreement reached with UC President Robert Dynes and CSU Chancellor Charles Reed as "a compromise that will protect the quality of our world-renowned higher education system."

But Assembly members Carol Liu and Dario Frommer and state Sen. Jack Scott decried the plan, saying that it flies in the face of the state's master plan for higher education by denying qualified students acceptance to state-run institutions of higher learning.

The California Master Plan for Higher Education, developed in the 1960s, promises qualified students access to state universities. Under the agreement reached Tuesday, as many as 10,000 accepted freshman students will be redirected to community colleges to complete two years of schooling before transferring to UC or CSU schools as a junior. Additionally, a more than $380 million one-time cut for the 2004-05 fiscal year is called for in the agreement, as well as moderate increases in funding in future years.

Liu, D-La Cañada Flintridge, said in a statement released Tuesday that she will not back the agreement.

"I cannot support a budget that restricts access to our public universities for students who have worked hard to qualify for enrollment in the UCs or the CSUs," she said.

Scott, who sits on the Senate Education Committee, said the plan is tantamount to students having "the rug pulled out from under them."

"The governor's deal robs an entire cohort of students from the promise of the California Master Plan, and sends the wrong signal to the employers in our state that rely on educated and trained graduates to fuel our economic vitality," Scott said in a statement.

Calling the agreement "wrongheaded," Assembly Majority Leader Frommer, D-Glendale, unveiled a plan that would thwart the one-year redirection of qualified students by applying less than half of the $1.3 billion the state recently received from a tax amnesty program that Frommer coauthored. If $46 million garnered from the amnesty program were applied to the UCs and CSUs, it would cover the costs of redirecting some 11,400 students who would be sent to community colleges.

"Over the last 40 years, the state has made a commitment to deserving students," Frommer said. "For a small investment, we can really keep our system on track."