California College students' financial woes seem to be ever increasing.The state's public universities plus around 15 of Cal State's 23 campuses have recently introduced graduation fees, meaning, a student has to pay a fee before receiving his or her diploma certificate.

Cal State spokesman Mike Uhlenkamp said that since tuition money can be used only for instruction costs, expenses incurred for graduation had to be funded from somewhere else.

For example, Cal State East Bay charges approximately $45 to $49 to graduate while the fee at San Francisco State University costs about $100, which is $60 more than two years ago.

In addition, most of the students at Cal state campuses have to shell out an additional fee of up to $38 for a written exam to qualify for the graduation.

Although the students at San Jose State University are not asked to pay for their graduation, they are required to pay a fee of $75 for taking part in smaller departmental ceremonies.

A university spokesperson said that the smaller ceremonies including food and drink are sometimes held in rented halls. These kinds of expenditures are not covered by tuition.

Apart from this new fee introduction, graduates have experienced tuition hikes almost every year during their four-year stay at the college.

"There is a fee for everything," said Natalia Aldana, a Cal State East Bay communications major and journalist. "I think it's really unfortunate that they have to charge students for everything they do, including graduation."

Aldana is set to graduate in June.

Other students like Mike Grace are willing to pay the graduation fee in order to receive their respective certificates.

Similar to San Jose, UC Berkeley graduates don't pay a separate fee to obtain their diplomas, but they pay for their commencement tickets that cost around $10 per head.

Graduation fee at other colleges:

Cal State Monterey Bay: $40
Fresno State: $35
Sacramento State: $63.50
San Diego State: $55

Another student, Rebecca Krueger said that the costs should be as low as possible so that every student can celebrate the joyous occasion along with the classmates.

Most of the students allege that by the time they reach the final weeks of their graduation, colleges impose additional charges and the students are forced to pay up.