With UC facing $417 million in proposed budget cuts, President Bob Dynes on Tuesday exhorted more than 300 staff, alumni and friends to hit the Capitol's hallways with the message that state support for the 10-campus system is "an investment, not an expenditure, and an investment for the future."

Dynes' made his comments early in the day as he kicked off the annual UC Day for advocacy at a Sacramento hotel ballroom a couple of blocks from the state Capitol. Dynes and others throughout the day urged the newly deputized lobbying corps to emphasize that same message when meeting with lawmakers and their staffs: UC is different than other state programs and agencies because of the tremendous return it generates — in productive Californians and lucrative tax dollars — for each state dollar invested in the system.

"Thousands and thousands of people every year are given a new track in life…we see what a difference that makes for our future," UC Davis Chancellor Larry Vanderehoef told a group of about 45 UC Davis supporters at a late-morning briefing.

This year's UC Day — during a year when Gov. Schwarzenegger and the Legislature are grappling with a multibillion dollar state deficit — came only five days after UC announced that it will continue to offer admission in fall 2008 to all undergraduate applicants who meet the university's eligibility requirements.

At the same time, though, university officials warned that UC cannot commit to expand its enrollments any further for the following 2009-10 year, unless the state is able to provide funding at that time for the additional students enrolled in 2008-09.

UC recently announced that California undergraduate applications for fall admission are up more than 7 percent for the 2008-09 year, setting a new record for undergraduate application volume and reflecting strong increases among students traditionally underrepresented at the university. At UC Davis, a record high nearly 49,000 high school seniors, prospective transfer students and others applied for fall 2008 — a 15 percent increase over fall 2007.

The decision to continue with UC's historic practice of offering a place at one of its campuses to all students who meet its eligibility requirements, while in the interest of prospective students who have worked hard to earn a place at UC, will bring increased pressure on the rest of the university's state-funded budget. The governor's proposed budget for UC is $417 million below the 2008-09 level requested by the Board of Regents to sustain UC's service to California.

"We are different," Dynes said in a brief interview after his morning UC Day address. "When times are tough, the thing to do is to not cut your investments. Because if you do, you're shorting your future, you're shorting your life… If you want to continue to be a leader, you must invest."

At the UC Davis meeting, Mary Sprifke, assistant to the executive director of the Cal Aggie Alumni Association, girded the dozen student advocates for their afternoon sessions at the Capitol: "Your voice is probably the most important voice in the room…you're the face of the future."

Class size, student fees

Some lawmakers made it clear they have already gotten the message. "You don't have to sell me…The University of California is integral to the state of California in every way," state Sen. Jack Scott, D-Pasadena, told the UC Day delegates during a short luncheon speech. The Alumni Associations of the University of California presented Scott and Assemblymember John Laird, D-Santa Cruz, with its two Legislator of the Year awards for 2008.

Earlier, Vanderhoef had told the UC Davis delegates that at Davis, like the other UC campuses, the availability, quality and size of classes "should stay pretty much the same. But there are other areas that will need to be cut."

Indeed, UC officials said last week that in order to continue to provide student access, the university "will need to look even more intensively at budget reductions in other areas as well as student fee levels." And this year's budget constraints and hike in applications mean it is possible that fewer students will be admitted to their campus of first choice this year relative to prior years.

The exact number of additional students who would be enrolled in 2008-09 above 2007-08 levels will not be known for some time. It will depend on how many applicants have met UC's eligibility requirements and how many accept offers of admission from UC campuses.

The university currently enrolls 220,000 students. UC's long-standing practice has been to offer a place at one of its campuses to all undergraduate applicants who meet the university's eligibility requirements. The challenge of meeting that commitment increased when the university announced recently that a record 121,005 students had applied for freshman or transfer admission to UC in fall 2008.

UC had planned to increase graduate student enrollments in nursing and public health programs in 2008-09, but due to the budget situation the university will be unable to increase enrollments in those fields until state funding is available.

UC's current state-funded budget is a little more than $3 billion a year, or about 17 percent of the $18 billion total. The university took substantial state budget cuts in the 1990s and again earlier this decade; state per-student funding for educating UC students has fallen from $15,830 in 1990-91 to $10,370 today, in current dollars.

For more information on the UC budget and the university's contributions to California, visit www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/budget. For more UC Davis-related budget information, go to www.news.ucdavis.edu/special_reports/budget. The UC Office of the President contributed to this article.