BERKELEY, Calif. -- The University of California’s budget woes have many students up in arms over significant fee hikes, but UC Regents continue to hire top administrators for salaries that some critics call outrageous.

No matter their major, the focus for many UC Berkeley students has recently turned to finances. And the drastic cuts University of California Regents are expected to make to close a projected $813 million budget deficit.

"The higher they increase the student fees, the more loans the students have to take out," said UC Berkeley senior Jovern Johnson.

Fellow senior Allison Deger made adjustments with her class schedule to save money. "I'm taking 18 units this summer so I can finish all my coursework before the increased fees," explained Deger.

Student fees are going up $662 this fall at a time when salaries for top administrators have soared.

Many UC employees are infuriated by recent high salary hires of senior administrators when up to 170,000 UC workers face mandatory furloughs and pay cuts.

Although UC's president said all salaries are being frozen or cut during this budget crisis, State Senator Leland Yee (D-San Francisco) insisted top administrators are out of control, handing out hundreds of thousands of dollars in inflated bonuses and salaries to senior staff.

"Unfortunately what's going on in the UC [system] is that there's no accountability whatsoever," said State Sen. Yee. "They are a state institution, a public institution. But because of the way the constitution is structured, it gives them that independence."

According to Yee, the independence allows the system to hire academics like Linda Katehi as UC Davis' new chancellor.

"She's an inventor whose own work in the field of engineering has led to 16 patents," said UC President Mark Yudof.

Katehi -- a renowned researcher and the former Vice Chancellor of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign -- will receive a $400,000 salary at UC Davis; a 27 percent increase over her predecessor.

Katehi will also receive free university housing, an $8,900 yearly automobile allowance, a $100,000 relocation allowance and a faculty position and low-interest home loan when she eventually leaves the chancellor's office.

Katehi's husband -- who holds a Ph.D in chemical engineering -- will also be considered for a job at UC Davis.

"So we had chancellors who were making more than the President of the United States. And that seems rather odd, in terms of proportion," said Yee.

Even as students and state legislators said the pay hikes and perks have gone too far, supporters of the current system say the benefits are necessary to compete with private universities for the same top-tier talent.

"The truth is, our faculty's underpaid by 15-to-20 percent," insisted UC President Yudof. "Many of our staff are at market; some are as much as 10 percent below market. But the chancellors are 33 percent below market."

UC officials said Katehi's $400,000 base salary is far below that of chancellors at 14 other comparable public and private universities with hospitals.

Critics point to a 2008 UCLA faculty association study that found the number of UC senior administration positions almost doubled in the past ten years, while faculty positions rose just 25 percent and faculty wages stagnated

Yee said the legislature has little influence over the decisions of the UC Regents.

"I think that there continues to be this sense of arrogance that this is their little private institution," said Yee. "This is their little private club."

UC students have been caught in the middle of the controversy. Josh Rickert is a Cal senior studying to become a psychologist. His student fees jumped nearly 20 percent since he started Cal three years ago.

"We're dealing with it. We're hoping that it won't continue to increase," said Rickert. "I think it's better to let the University of California manage its own affairs. They may be thinking of some empty shirts somewhere in their view but it takes gifted people to run these universities."

Rickert’s mother just picked up a part-time job to help pay her son’s rising fees.