Students hoping for more time to study SF State's Spring 2009 class schedule before paying tuition got an early holiday surprise today.

The university unveiled the schedule, which had been delayed a month to work out more anticipated budget cuts, "more than a week earlier than promised," President Robert A. Corrigan said in an e-mail. The deadline to pay fees for Spring 2009 is 5 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 4 and early priority registration will begin Monday, Dec. 8.

SF State cut 150 classes from its list of about 3500 offerings, but Corrigan said "careful budgeting and creative planning" allowed the university to mitigate losses. The university originally expected to cut 300-400 classes this spring to weather a $4 million reduction in funding.

This announcement comes six days after the California State University declared system-wide impaction, requiring universities to give admission priority to local applicants and to deny other eligible students for the first time in the system's history.

Though SF State will likely need to deny some eligible freshman from outside Marin, San Francisco and San Mateo counties, Corrigan said local applicants and current students will not likely be affected. "We will continue to admit qualified students from those counties just as we have in the past, if they apply by the December 10 deadline. For students from other parts of California or from outside California, impaction will mean that they may have to meet higher academic standards," he said.

Spring tuition costs will not rise, but "given the state's budget situation, I consider it likely that there will be a student fee increase for 2009-10," Corrigan said.