The students attended a rally on Thursday to protest Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's proposed 10 percent cut to the state's education budget.

About 1,000 students, faculty and administrators protested the estimated $313million budget reduction that the Cal State university system could incur for the fiscal year beginning July 1.

Officials said the cut translates into 300 less new students for the fall semester. The university stopped enrolling freshman March 1 in anticipation of the governor's budget.

"It's our right to an education," student David Johnson said. "Two governors in a row have taken the people's lifeline away, as they're leaving office."

Cal State San Bernardino students and officials said the cuts will reduce minority enrollment. Thirty-eight percent of the student body is Latino and 13 percent is black.

University President Albert Karnig said the cuts are a kick in the teeth to minority groups.

"If historically under-represented groups are just getting started, and now you reduce (enrollment), it's tragic," he said. Karnig would not point to specific programs on campus that might be targeted for cuts.

Without knowing what the final state budget will be, the university cannot make those decisions, and any such talk is premature, he said.

Thursday's rally - which one official referred to as a proactive, pre-emptive shot at Sacramento - lasted about two hours.

One person said the cuts are a social-justice issue. Others accused Schwarzenegger of slamming the education door in the face of women and immigrants.

But one recent graduate of the university said all the bluster of officials and students opposing the cuts amounts to a lot of hot air.

Kimberly Powell, who graduated in June with a degree in political science and was president of the now-defunct Conservative Union on campus, was a substitute teacher in the Hesperia Unified School District. She said the university throws money away on frivolous programs unrelated to academics, such as free exams at the campus health center, free condoms and fliers on movies.

Powell said those are small-change items that not only illustrate poor spending habits, but, coupled with other programs, also exacerbated budget problems.

"This is a college, not a nightclub," she said.