Give Our Students Wider Horizons : Education: California’s universities are turning away qualified applicants. We could easily help them to attend out-of-state colleges.

We read of California high school students with straight As being denied admission to campuses of the University of California. Or we learn of individuals who abandon long-held career aspirations because there are not enough openings in some of the state’s professional schools.

These students are victims of a fierce competition for admission to California’s public higher-education system--too many qualified applicants and too few openings.

Greater capital and human resources are required. California is moving in this direction by expanding programs and facilities, including spending millions of dollars for planning and opening of new campuses. But while that long and costly process is under way, there are other established and less expensive ways available to help California ease some of its enrollment pressures, while also extending educational opportunities to its college students.

One approach is to liberalize state financial aid to support California students who enroll outside the state. There is precedent for this. Alaska, for instance, provides loans for its undergraduate students who attend college in another state.

California’s public leaders also could take a fresh look at the possibilities offered through various student exchange programs administered by the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education, which includes 15 states.

One new and promising program, the Western Undergraduate Exchange, allows students from participating states to enroll in undergraduate studies at 74 campuses for a significantly reduced tuition.

Participation by California in the undergraduate exchange would be in the best interest of the state’s undergraduate students, since about 10,000 of them already enroll each year in colleges in other Western states but must now pay much more expensive nonresident tuition.

California can take advantage of this reduced “Western college” tuition by offering the special rate to residents of other Western states for some selected programs at our own public colleges, universities or higher education systems.

In graduate education, 125 selected master’s and doctoral programs are open to Western students for resident tuition--again without California’s participation. California could make all 125 of these graduate programs available to our residents if it reciprocated with resident tuition in certain distinctive graduate programs.

Another exchange program of the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education, now 36 years old, reserves openings for qualified students in human and veterinary medicine, dentistry, optometry and a dozen other professions. Using this program, students from several sparsely populated states have a much greater chance of being educated in medicine or other health-related professions because their home state, in effect, has purchased access for its qualified residents.

In all of these exchanges, decisions on admission of students and the designation of participating programs and schools would remain in the exclusive control of California authorities.

Since the 1950s, California’s public and private schools have participated in the regional professional student exchange as a “receiver,” educating thousands from other Western states.

But California has not kept pace with the other Western states in providing affordable access to high-quality undergraduate, graduate and professional education for its own students who choose to or must enroll outside the state to obtain their college degrees.

That time may have arrived.