Despite objections from Gov. Jerry Brown, a controversial proposal to boost tuition as much as 5 percent annually over the next five years in the University of California system on Wednesday took a major step forward.

Nine members of the Board of Regents voted 7-2 to recommend to the full panel that it approve the tuition plan. The full, 23-member board is scheduled to make a final decision Thursday.

RELATED: Social media reaction to proposed UC tuition hike

Brown, who serves as a UC regent and was one of the committee dissenters, told the other regents to consider alternatives before voting to add more than $3,000 a year to tuition over a five-year window.

“I know there are no silver bullets we can fire,” Brown said. “But I don’t think you’ve considered other costs you can cut without increasing tuition.”

But the Committee on Long Range Planning instead voted recommend the proposal that would call for the increase unless more state funding comes into the 10-campus system.

The full board participated in Wednesday’s heated, four-hour debate in San Francisco. Discussions were often interrupted by student protesters shouting from the audience.

“We looked at a lot of options before we got to this point,” said UC President Janet Napolitano, who backs the plan to increase tuition if state funding can’t be found.

“We need to be thinking of the long-term health of the university. The plan before you is the most clear and provides the highest level of predictability for students and families.”

UC students, including those at UC Irvine, would pay up to $612 more for tuition and fees, for a maximum of $12,804, in the first school year of the increases, 2015-16. The annual amount would climb to $15,564 in 2019-20.

Some regents, in addition to Wednesday’s dissenters, said they would oppose the plan.

The governor proposed the creation of a UC committee to develop plans to streamline costs. Brown suggested strengthening online-education programs, and offer more course credit for work experience or military service.

UC tuition has been frozen for the past three years as part of a deal the governor and lawmakers made with the system in exchange for increased state funding. But UC officials have said that while state revenues have increased by more than 8 percent in recent years, funding for the system has only grown half that.

Nathan Brostrom, UC’s chief financial officer, said that without increased revenues, the system would have to cap enrollment, increase the rate of out-of-state students, and cut funding for financial aid. About 55 percent of the system’s current 233,000 students have all their fees and tuition subsidized through grants and aid, and thus wouldn’t be affected.

Brostrom said that growing pension obligations, and the need to keep faculty salaries competitive, have also increased costs. Without increased revenues, campuses will be in danger of losing scores of revered researchers, professors and administrators to higher-paying private schools including Yale, Harvard and Stanford, Brostrom said.

UC Berkeley senior Sadia Saifuddin, a student regent, said increased tuition would put a heavier burden on middle-class families across the state. Saifuddin said she works four jobs just to pay her fees after her family told her they could no longer afford to help.

“Students should not be the ones having to pay the price for the state not adequately funding higher education,” she said.

At UC Irvine, sophomore Kelly Pham said the regents should have sought more student input before creating the tuition increase plan.

“I don’t think they realize how tough it already is for students to pay for classes,” said Pham, who said she may have to take out student loans to pay for the rest of her education. “I might be saddled with debt. But I don’t see what other choice I would have.”

In San Francisco, student protesters tried to block members of the UC regents from entering Wednesday’s meeting. University police pushed the students back behind barricades at the conference center at the University of California, Mission Bay.

Register staff writer Sarah Tully and the Associated Press contributed to this report.