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The $105.3 billion state budget approved Wednesday by the state Assembly will allow the University of California to fulfill its Master Plan promise to accept every qualified high school student in the state.

After several weeks of negotiations, the budget, which is expected to be signed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger by Saturday, will give the UC $12 million to enroll about 1,600 students who were previously to be deferred to community colleges for two years before transferring to a UC campus.

This turn of events comes less than a month before several UC campuses will begin the academic year, leaving many students anxious and uncertain about their impending freshman year. Many of these students already have made specific arrangements based on the original transfer option.

Due to the lingering state budget crisis, Schwarzenegger asked the UC in May to reduce its freshman enrollment by 10 percent as a cost-cutting measure. Rather than reject qualified applicants, the UC opted to give 7,600 students the option to enroll in a community college with a guaranteed transfer to a UC campus after two years.

The number was later reduced to 5,800 after the Davis and Santa Cruz campuses were able to accept more students, said Hanan Eisenman, a spokesman for the UC Office of the President. About 1,300 of these students accepted the option, he added.

The plan, known as the Guaranteed Transfer Option, was subject to much scrutiny for rejecting qualified applicants from the UC.

The university system now expects about 1,600 students accepted under the GTO to accept enrollment in the UC, Eisenman said. The students will be accepted in the fall, winter or spring term, depending on how quickly each campus can accommodate them, he added.

“We're going to do our best to make the process as smooth as possible for these students,” Eisenman said.

Assembly Speaker Fábian Núñez, D-Los Angeles, made it a priority to ensure every qualified student would be able to go to a UC, said Nick Velasquez, a spokesman for Núñez.

Velasquez added Núñez “fought long and hard to restore funding” for UC admissions.

The UC also had $29 million restored to its outreach programs - equal to last year's budget - and received $20 million to fund the September opening of the new Merced campus.

But despite this week's victories, the UC still faces a slew of cuts in the budget.

“There are still significant cuts in other areas like research and administration,” Eisenman said.

In May, Schwarzenegger entered into a compact with the UC in which the university agreed to absorb $372 million in cuts with the promise of increases in state funding to the university in 2005-06.

To offset these cuts, the UC Board of Regents increased in-state undergraduate student fees by 14 percent and graduate student fees by 20 percent.

Coming 28 days into the fiscal year, the approval of this budget ended an impasse marked by partisan rancor and infused with childish name-calling – and kept Democratic lawmakers away from the Democratic National Convention in Boston.

The budget avoids significant new cuts and does not introduce new taxes, but it calls for heavy borrowing Republican leaders warn eventually will lead to higher taxes.

With reports from Natalie Banach, Bruin senior staff.bv