Long Beach --

One week after voters approved his plan to raise taxes to protect public schools and prevent tuition increases, Gov. Jerry Brown on Tuesday persuaded both the University of California and California State University to postpone votes on fee hikes scheduled for this week.

The governor said the timing - on the heels of Proposition 30's win - was wrong. Brown had campaigned for Prop. 30 on the promise that it would keep college costs down while helping public schools and the state budget.

But even as Brown campaigned, university administrators prepared to seek fee increases, with or without Prop. 30's passage. On Tuesday, UC and CSU backed off those plans after hearing from Brown and after Brown scheduled appearances before each university's governing board.

The UC regents, meeting in San Francisco, where Brown scheduled a visit for Wednesday, postponed a vote on raising fees for students in professional degree programs. The CSU trustees, meeting in Long Beach, delayed indefinitely a decision on whether to raise fees for students who stay in school after being eligible to graduate or who take more classes than is typical.

Thanks from Brown

CSU's announcement came shortly before Brown's scheduled appearance in Long Beach on Tuesday. He used the visit to thank board members for their action and told reporters afterward that he had asked for the delay not only from CSU but from UC as well.

"I did request it because I thought right after the election was not the time to be raising fees of any kind," Brown said, referring to the CSU request. "I think there may well be alternative ways to achieve the objective of getting students to be more diligent, to graduate on time, to repeat fewer courses and to otherwise make their years as productive and effective as possible."

The governor did not say he opposed the CSU plan, but said he wanted to take a harder look at it and not "prejudge" whether it is fair.

CSU officials have said that budget cuts have forced them to turn away 20,000 eligible students a year for the last four years. They said they created the fee plan as a way to free up seats in the overcrowded university system.

Under the plan, increased fees would target so-called "super seniors" who remain in school after they are eligible to graduate. Students who take extra classes or who take the same class a number of times would also see increases of hundreds of dollars for every unit above the cutoff.

"This is a market mechanism to encourage certain kinds of behaviors, and there may well be other ways to achieve that, because fees fall disproportionately on people based on their ability to pay," Brown said. "If you have a lot of money, the fee is relatively meaningless. If you have more modest incomes, then the fee will obviously have more weight."

Bob Linscheid, chairman of the Board of Trustees, said the board would study the fee hike proposal further to see how best to proceed.

Students, many of whom had been fighting the CSU fee proposal, were pleased but cautious about the delay.

"It's not a complete solution, but this is a big step forward," said Justin Blea, a philosophy major at Cal State East Bay who had planned to fly down to Long Beach to testify before the Board of Trustees but stopped when he learned of the postponement on Tuesday morning. "What we ultimately want is to not have these fees imposed."

UC professional degrees

The UC regents agreed to postpone an increase in professional degree fees, which are charged for many - but not all - programs on top of tuition. But they still expect to vote on a budget proposal Wednesday that includes a provision for raising tuition next year.

The proposal says UC will raise tuition next year unless the state allocates $126.5 million in 2013-14 on top of other planned increases. UC has raised tuition in all but two of the last 11 years. This year and 2006 saw no increases.

Brown did not say if he'll include the extra money for UC in the state budget he will propose in early January. He did say that the state's finances "are in the best shape we've been in in more than a decade. But that doesn't mean there won't be some curtailments."

Fees at UC are usually increased in the fall to give prospective students a better sense of what they'll have to pay, said spokesman Steve Montiel, referring to the tabled vote on professional degree fees.

The governor, who serves on the Board of Regents by virtue of his office, asked for additional time to allow him to develop a better understanding of the policies and methodology involved in the setting of fee levels, Montiel said.

Changing education

The university systems' actions come a week after voters approved Prop. 30 to raise taxes and avoid nearly $6 billion in cuts to public schools and higher education. CSU and UC each would have faced a $250 million cut if the measure had failed.

"Taxpayers got out of their comfort zone" in voting for Prop. 30, Brown told the trustees. "We have to follow suit" and find ways to improve higher education without raising costs. Later he told reporters that universities have to be open to change.

"You've got to have the classes available, and some of that may have to come online," Brown said. "Knowledge increasingly is available online. That principle will be increasingly brought to bear on the university."