‘Sure, it’s not as expensive as USC . . . but all the fee increases defeat the purpose of a public education system.’--Undergraduate Rodan Smiler : CSUN Students Adjust to the Rising Cost of Education

Cal State Northridge students, who have seen the annual cost of attending the university full time rise from $936 to $1,148 over the past two years, face a record payment this year.

Fall semester fees of $574 are due tomorrow and another payment of about $200 will be assessed later this summer when the Legislature agrees on a state budget.

Together, the increases will bring the annual fees for attending the school to $1,520.

The escalating fees come at the same time CSUN and the other Cal State campuses are cutting thousands of classes to save money, prompting complaints from students that California’s “free” college education is becoming prohibitively expensive, as they are being asked to pay more to get less.

“Sure, it’s not as expensive as USC or some other private college, but all the fee increases defeat the purpose of a public education system,” said CSUN student Rodan Smiler, 22, of Tarzana. “What happens when people can’t afford it anymore?”

Legislative opposition to the proposed 40% fee increase for Cal State students has all but disappeared, CSU officials said.

For CSUN students, that means they will get another bill and have 30 days to pay the increase, campus officials said. If students do not pay, they will be barred from enrolling and will not have access to their academic records, CSUN spokeswoman Kaine Thompson said.

The two-part billing is yet another burden facing students, staff members and faculty on the Northridge campus, which is threatened by budget cuts of 11% and more. The state cuts threaten to eliminate more than one-third of CSUN’s teaching staff, resulting in the cancellation of hundreds of classes.

That is bound to add to the school’s reputation as an institution where it is difficult to graduate in four years.

“It took me seven years to graduate because I could never get classes,” said Chris Wilson, 26, of Canoga Park. She was on campus Tuesday with her husband, a current student.

School officials said last week that they expect a scheduling nightmare when the fall semester starts and 29,000 students scramble for seats in classes that will accommodate only about 26,000.

“I almost wouldn’t mind a fee increase if it meant they would have the same number of classes,” said Holly Jones, 28, a CSUN student who lives in Van Nuys. “I’m just glad I only have one year left.”

The higher fees alone are expected to keep out a number of working students who are barely scraping by, school officials said. Statewide, about 6% of the students accepted for enrollment in 20 Cal State campuses last fall dropped out, many because of a 20% fee increase imposed at the time, CSU officials said.

Working students at CSUN say they are now bracing for the new fee increases.

“I work 30 hours a week during the semester and my professors say I should work less,” said Alberto Gudino, 20, of Sylmar. “The workload is a strain sometimes because I try to study five hours a day.”

Gudino, a political science major and the supervisor of a Van Nuys handbag warehouse, said he would like to follow his instructors’ advice, but there is one problem.

“I used to get some financial aid, but it got cut,” he said.