Faculty members on two campuses, Dominguez Hills and East Bay, held a strike last fall, the first in the faculty union’s nearly three-decade history. The union has asked for a 1 percent raise and says administrators have asked to freeze faculty salaries, which have not increased since 2008.

But even more concerning than the salary issue, they say, is the university’s reliance on part-time lecturers, some of whom teach a full load of courses but do not have tenure. Those lecturers make roughly $50,000 a year, about half of what a tenured professor makes.

University officials are trying to end a policy that automatically renews contracts for such lecturers; the union is arguing that such a change would limit academic freedom.

Emily Magruder, a humanities lecturer at Dominguez Hills, said that when she began teaching eight years ago, she had about 45 students in each class. Now, she said, her classes have ballooned to 60.

“You can’t have the contact you want to have with students, and you spend an enormous amount of time grading,” she said. “Research is supposed to be the backbone of academia, but to survive economically, this is the only choice.”

Since the 2007-8 school year, tuition at California State University has climbed to $5,472, from $2,772. Tuition is higher during the summer sessions, which many students rely on to take courses that otherwise fill up quickly.

The anger escalated last year when San Diego State University hired a new president with a salary of $400,000, about $100,000 more than his predecessor, while increasing tuition by 12 percent. In January, the board of trustees approved a plan to freeze the use of state money for pay increases until 2014, although they will continue to allow individual campuses to use money from private donors and foundations when it is “deemed necessary.”