SAN DIEGO -- About 1,000 students from across San Diego County took to the streets Monday to demand affordable public higher education in California.

"Hey, San Diego, wake up," said student organizer Enrique De La Cruz as the crowd mustered at his San Diego City College campus around 11 a.m. "You've got students on the move."

Students at the protest said higher education would be denied to many if the state cuts college and university spending, imposes tuition hikes and restricts admissions, all at the same time.

Organizers also said they want lawmakers to beat back cuts to outreach programs and to programs for the disabled and poor and avoid worker layoffs.

A bull horn in hand, Cal State San Marcos senior Erik Roper, the recent winner of a university leadership award, said budget proposals in Sacramento would throw California's "commitment to higher education, to affordable higher education, out the window."

The protest comes about three weeks before the governor is set to announce revisions to his January budget proposal that would hike tuition about 10 percent at both the California State University and the University of California and 44 percent at the community colleges; cap the enrollments at the universities and cut the General Fund allotments to the CSU and UC by 9 percent.

Marching and chanting "no more cuts," the throng of students from community college and university campuses -- including about 40 from Cal State San Marcos and Palomar College -- stopped around 12:30 p.m. to send a delegation to the field office of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger at 1350 Front St.

One student, Trisha Iglesias of Cal State San Marcos, presented a box full of letters of protest from about 700 students on the North County campus.

Striding to a beat sounded by hands and sticks on empty water-cooler jugs and paint cans, the marchers got to Front Street via B Street, Eighth Avenue, a right turn onto Market Street and then another right onto Front.

Leading them was Joshua Wilson, a UC San Diego student and an organizer of the student and faculty group, the San Diego Stop the Cuts Coalition.

Said Tammy Booth, a Cal State San Marcos junior whose financial aid may be jeopardized if cuts survive the Legislature: "I'm in full support of everyone having the opportunity to go to school."

As the students marched through the tunnel where the federal building straddles Front Street, they let out a roar that amplified as it echoed off the ceiling and the hard-surfaced walls. The tunnel provided the march's only shade on an unseasonably hot day.

City police on motorcycles stopped traffic at intersections so the students could cross. Police also herded vehicles off Front Street, where the route took the students the wrong way along a one-way road.

Student marshals in red T-shirts kept marchers in line. Police reported no arrests. The students were raucous and boisterous in their chants, but orderly in their marching.

The student delegation, with California Highway Patrol officers keeping the state office building entrance limited to six people, met in a conference room with Cameron Durckel, director of the governor's field office.

The crowd filled the street outside and listened to students and faculty over a loudspeaker press the message that higher education should be the last place the state dips into to solve fiscal woes.

"We're the ones that pay taxes," one student called out, reminding the crowd of U.S. involvement in Iraq. "We want our money to pay for education, not war."

Student delegates emerged from their meeting after about 20 minutes. One, Samara Bahoor, a UCSD junior, said she was not encouraged by the official response and she was now more determined than ever to step up the protest.

"Everyone was talking about how cuts and fee increases were unacceptable and putting education out of reach," Boohar said of the meeting. "This means we are going to fight harder and we're not going to stop fighting."

Durckel did not respond to a request for comment.

Lance Newman, an assistant professor in writing and literature studies at Cal State San Marcos, joined the students. He said he expected that each already "really stressed out" teacher on the San Marcos campus would be seeing as many as 20 percent more students under the January budget proposal. He said big classes make for less student participation and passive consumption rather than critical thought.

"And our campus has always pitched itself as small, intimate; the kind of place where we give our students personal attention," he said.

Other marches were planned Monday in Sacramento, Los Angeles and San Francisco.

Aside from the North County institutions, the coalition lists members from UC San Diego, San Diego State University and Southwestern, Mesa, San Diego City and Miramar colleges. Absent from the list was MiraCosta College, with campuses in Oceanside and Encinitas.

Schwarzenegger proposed in January to cut the general fund appropriation for the California State University system by 9 percent, or $2.4 million, and raise undergraduate tuition by 10 percent, or an average of $204. Adding on local campus fees, that would bring the annual bill at Cal State San Marcos to $2,822. The Cal State system would be forced to turn about 20,000 students away in the fall if the plan is approved by the Legislature, said Chancellor Charles B. Reed.

Cal State San Marcos has gone into a no-growth mode and estimates that 500 otherwise qualified students will be turned away for fall admission. Cal State San Marcos listed nearly 7,800 enrollees in the fall.

At the community colleges, most students face a 44 percent hike in costs to $26 a credit hour, or about $78 for a typical class. For full-time students, annual tuition would rise to $750. The hike is on top of a 65 percent increase in 2003.

In the University of California system, undergraduate fees would rise by $498 to $5482.

Contact staff writer Bruce Kauffman at (760) 761-4410 or bkauffman@nctimes.com.