Without the new revenue, she warned, both systems will have to limit enrollment because they will not be able to hire enough professors.
But Munitz said "only a handful" of legislators, mostly those who serve on the education committees in the two houses, support higher fees.
"Everybody else is talking about all the letters they're getting in the mail but nobody's talking about the future of higher education," he said.
While UC's proposed fee increase probably is safe from direct legislative attack, the nine-campus system will be forced to defend itself on several other fronts.
Hill has recommended that every UC faculty member be asked to teach one additional class a year, raising the average teaching load from five to six courses a year.
This would save the state $7.5 million next year, and $47 million over a period of years, she said, because the university would not have to hire as many new faculty members.
William B. Baker, UC's vice president for budget and university relations, said the university already has taken steps to improve undergraduate education and that not hiring new faculty as Hill proposed would increase the systemwide 17.6-1 pupil-teacher ratio to 20 to 1, "much higher than the universities we compete with for faculty."
Hill recommended that both UC and Cal State admit qualified students but then redirect them to community colleges for their first two years, guaranteeing that the students could enroll as juniors at specific UC and Cal State campuses if they had done acceptable community college work.
Baker said this would "change the character" of the University of California, which is only able to offer small classes and tutorials to upper division students and graduate students because freshmen and sophomores are enrolled in large lecture courses where their principal contact is with low-paid graduate students.
