Yesterday, I was speaking with a professor whose opinion was that students entering graduate school this cycle are in a somewhat fortunate position. Next year he predicted that wide-spread, deep budget cuts will keep many more students from being accepted than will this year. He said that budgets are currently being evaluated and departments are primarily making minor changes. Also, he said that those entering grad school now were much more fortunate than students almost finished with their graduate work, who are now heading out into (a pretty sparse) job market. I know at my university (and dept) faculty searches have recently been called off. It's unfortunate,but I think in the next year or so the situation will probably get worse.
That being said, being a student admitted with funding to a UC school, I will certainly take the financial situation into consideration, but won't base my decision off of it. Funding is definitely important to me, but as a future humanities grad student, I've never expected to be rolling in dough.
Just my two cents.