California students have been up in arms all semester, but now parents and families are knocking on the doors of Sacramento over impending budget cuts and fee hikes at California public universities.

The Parent Advisory Council at California State University-Chico is organizing a campaign to get parents to call their representatives and tell them that education is becoming unaffordable.

Bob Combs, president of the Advisory Council, is heading the campaign.

"We elect these officials, we donate money and we are the voice of our children," said Combs. "If one of us is calling an Assembly member or Congress person, we're certainly much stronger if 10 of us are calling."

The L.A. Times interviewed two parents, Berenice Vite and Rafael Curiel, who missed three house payments to meet their son’s tuition at CSU-Long Beach.

"I was raised learning about the importance of education, and I want my children to be educated,” said Vite. “But we don't know if we're going to have a house or not.”

Students in both the CSU and the University of California systems have been getting huge amounts of media attention as thousands attended protests and occupied university-owned buildings over the course of the semester. Over 200 students have been arrested since September.

The UC system is raising tuition by 32 percent over the next year, and CSU is accepting 40,000 fewer students. Both moves are reactions to a total of $516 million in budget cuts.

Ken Stone, the president of the CSU Alumni Council and father of three current CSU students, also sees community organizing as the path forward.

"There are things we can do at a grass-roots level, like talking with friends and neighbors about the threat to higher education, and we want to make sure we can talk from a knowledgeable base."

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