Fee Hike Closer for Community College System : Finances: Board will consider boosting student costs to $10 a unit and establishing an admissions policy giving priority to those entering higher education for the first time.

California’s vast community college system, faced with the likelihood of sharp cutbacks in state funding next year, on Tuesday moved closer to raising student fees and for the first time setting guidelines for limiting admissions.

The legislative committee of the system’s Board of Governors, acting for the full board at a meeting here, authorized Chancellor David Mertes to assemble a package of budget and admissions policies to cope with an anticipated cut of $70 million to $220 million in next year’s budget.

The package could include:

* Raising general student fees from $6 to as much as $10 per credit unit throughout the 107-campus, 1.5-million-student system.

* Lifting the $60-per-semester cap on total student fees now in place.

* Charging students who already have a bachelor’s degree or advanced degree about $50 per unit, instead of the current $6.

* Establishing the system’s first priority admissions policies that, Mertes said, would “give priority to students who are coming into higher education for the first time.”

The chancellor said that raising general fees, imposing higher fees for those who already have four-year degrees and lifting the $60 fee limit could produce more than $100 million for the two-year college system next year.

This would “take care of the kind of hit that is being talked about” as Gov. Pete Wilson and legislative leaders wrestle with an expected $11-billion shortfall in next year’s state budget, Mertes said.

But a cut of $220 million, which a legislative committee has asked Mertes to study, “virtually wipes out our ability to handle the numbers of students who are coming to us,” he added. The Legislature has final say on fee increases.

With the University of California and the California State University expected to turn away students because of budget cuts next year, community college enrollments are likely to exceed the growth that was anticipated in the governor’s proposed 1992-93 budget.

Wilson originally proposed a 10.2% increase in state support for the public two-year colleges--about $270 million--but the state’s continuing economic slump has left that amount in doubt.

Representatives of student and faculty groups told the committee they did not like higher fees but realized they might be necessary.

“We understand the state is in a tough spot and that puts us in a tough spot,” said Tanya Banta, a student at Ohlone College in Fremont, representing community college student governments. “We’d like to say no to (higher) fees but we realize that isn’t realistic.”

California’s public community college fees of $120 per year are the lowest in the nation.

Setting statewide admissions priorities is “a change in a long community college tradition,” away from “first come, first served,” Mertes told the committee. But he said it is necessary “to keep the master plan (the state Master Plan for Higher Education, which guarantees low-cost higher education to all who seek it) alive during this period of a major recession.”

Later, in an interview, the chancellor said he and the Board of Governors hope to adopt a “coherent set of policies” governing admissions, favoring first-time students at the expense of those returning to community colleges to update their skills or for other reasons. Currently individual departments or colleges turn some students away when there is no room.