University of California president Janet Napolitano would withdraw the proposal for tuition fee hike in case the state raises the funding by USD100 million in 2015, a spokeswoman said on Wednesday.

The issue of proposed tuition fee hike has ignited a huge public outcry over higher education in the country’s most populous state.

A nine-member committee will be meeting on Wednesday to vote on the proposed annual tuition hikes of five percent between 2015 and 2019. Brown, who is also a team member, is likely to oppose the also expected to attend the meeting and.

Meanwhile, the students thronged in large numbers outside the University of California’s Mission Bay campus to protest against the move and obstruct the regents from entering the conference center for the meeting. They shouted anti-slogans against the officials, saying ‘tuition should be free’. Some of the protesters also formed human chain in an attempt to prevent regents from getting into the venue.

Napolitano, who was also the former US Homeland Security chief, has left no stone unturned to get Democratic Governor Jerry Brown to nearly double the commitment of the state to higher education.

Brown on Monday appointed two new members to the Board of Regents of the university.

In an email response, Dianne Klein, a spokeswoman for Napolitano, said, “To completely buy-out a five percent tuition hike for next year, we will need an additional USD 100 million from the state. To put it another way, each USD 20 million would reduce the increase by one percent,”

Meanwhile, Brown has pledged a funding hike for the cash-strapped university system, but only when the tuition fee is held steady at the rates followed in 2012. He had also vetoed a bill, passed by the legislature, which would have imposed additional USD 50 million burden, claiming that the tax revenues are not doing enough to support the spending.