Adithya Sambamurthy/The Bay Citizen

Bubbles float through the air above Occupy Cal protesters at Sproul Plaza the night of Nov. 15, 2011

On Tuesday night, two days after police evicted the Occupy Oakland encampment, thousands of students and activists demonstrated at the University of California, Berkeley campus, some pitching tents overnight in defiance of university policy and state law. Police dismantled the encampment early Thursday morning, but the protest has nonetheless given a new focus to the Occupy movement in the Bay Area.

Unlike the urban encampments around the country that have struggled to put forward cohesive demands, the Berkeley demonstrators say they have fought for years to stop the steep cuts to education funding and slow the relentless tuition hikes that since 2005 have more than doubled student costs.

As dusk fell on Wednesday, Jasper Bernes, a 37-year-old graduate student in the English Department, sat on the steps of Sproul Hall and surveyed the students moving around the pitched tents and preparing for another night on the plaza.

The Berkeley protests have been “a transformation of the student movement, borrowing the language and tactics and methods of the Occupy movement,” Bernes said. “2009 is where it really started.” That year, undergraduate tuition increased by nearly 30 percent.

On the heels of anti-Wall Street protests around the Bay Area, demonstrators say, the Occupy Cal agenda has crystallized around the long-running struggle against the rising cost of education, and activists have begun to exert pressure on state lawmakers and university administrators. During Tuesday night’s rally, the huge crowd voted overwhelmingly in favor of writing an open letter to UC regents, CSU trustees, education administrators and the state government with specific demands: a reversal in fee hikes, layoffs and cuts to 2009 levels — funded by higher taxes on the wealthy; full implementation of affirmative action on campuses; and an end to the use of force against campus protesters.

On Wednesday, busloads of students from UC Davis and UC Berkeley rallied on the steps of the state Capitol. More busloads of UC students joined students from San Francisco State University, members of Occupy San Francisco, and representatives from the labor coalition ReFund California for a march in downtown San Francisco Wednesday.

Student groups and ReFund California demonstrated at the California State University Board of Trustees meeting on Wednesday in Long Beach, where trustees approved a 9 percent tuition increase for the 2012-13 school year. The board held its vote in a new location, after protesters tried to storm the building, shattering a glass door. It was the third time in just over a year that trustees approved a tuition increase.

Leaders for both the CSU and UC systems insist they want to find an alternative to tuition increases. On Wednesday, Mark Yudof, the president of the University of California, said he supported students protesting tuition hikes.

"I am proud of UC students who are speaking out with passion and conviction in support of public higher education across the state. I was moved last night by the sight of thousands of students who peacefully demonstrated in UC Berkeley’s Sproul Plaza, and by those who traveled to Sacramento to protest state disinvestment in our colleges and universities," Yudof wrote in a post on his Facebook page.

Leigh Raiford, an associate professor of African-American studies involved in the Occupy Cal protests, said, “Having a national movement that is internationally recognized really forces the administration and the state legislators to not dismiss these actions."

But looming over the protests is a grim fiscal reality: California is now facing a $3.7 billion budget deficit, according to a report released Wednesday by the state’s nonpartisan Legislative Analyst Office. That deficit, the report said, could trigger a series of mid-year cuts to education and social services that were built into the budget deal approved by Democratic legislators in June.

The state could have to slash $100 million each from the UC and the CSU systems. That is in on top of the $650 million the state cut from each system in June. The additional cuts would almost certainly lead to more tuition increases.