PERSPECTIVE ON EDUCATION : Pulling the Rug on Students : By the year 2000, the UC and Cal State systems will be turning away eligible applicants, if policies are not changed.

Economists are not very good at forecasting most things, but in one area we do have excellent data: numbers of future high school graduates. As a result, it is possible to anticipate the demand for higher education for many years ahead.

In California, after a decade of stability, the number of high school graduates is sharply on the rise, accelerating through the remainder of the 1990s and into the first decade of the next century. The increase from now to 2007 is more than 73%. The children of the baby-boom generation are coming of age in the 1990s and early 2000s. While their parents swamped the colleges and universities in the 1960s, this new generation promises to do the same in coming years.

One of the great benefits of living in California in recent decades has been access to a superb system of public and private higher education. California has set the standard for the nation and the world in providing high-quality, low-priced public higher education, with a place guaranteed for every eligible person. That legacy is now threatened and will surely be lost if extraordinary steps are not taken.

If the policies of the last four years continue, a young person who graduates from high school in the year 2000 will have little chance of being accepted by a University of California campus, may not find space in a California State University campus and may even be crowded out of the local community college. And private higher education will be out of reach for all but the most affluent.

These concerns lie behind my recent report for the California Higher Education Policy Center in San Jose, in which I urged Gov. Pete Wilson to declare a state of emergency in higher education and appoint a blue-ribbon commission to plan the future of the system. To many people, this recommendation seems extreme, even surprising, but it rests on clear population trends, coupled with the state’s continuing fiscal crisis. Unlike the 1960s, in the next five to 15 years it simply will not be possible to build more campuses to meet projected needs.

As a result of these conflicting forces, there appear to be two plausible options:

* Deny access to higher education to several hundred-thousand young people of the next generation (an option that former UC President Clark Kerr, father of the state’s Master Plan for Higher Education, calls “a moral, economic and political tragedy for the state”).

* Suspend business as usual and find ways to increase places in the existing system for more undergraduates.

My recommendations, 12 in all, were directed to that second option.

Among my proposals were several ideas that spokesmen for the UC and CSU systems have criticized, such as suspending admissions to a number of graduate programs, excluding out-of-state undergraduates and giving highest priority of admission to students aged 17 to 24. It is easy to dismiss any idea that upsets the status quo or violates established interests, but it is dishonest to assert that the problem is under control, or that a 2% increase in the state appropriation, with a promise of 4% in subsequent years, means that the state has turned the corner and solved the access problem.

Stabilizing the budget and ending the cuts are to be applauded, and are necessary first steps. But now the hard work must begin. California citizens surely have the right to expect stronger and more imaginative leadership in addressing a tough problem that will not go away by ignoring it.

It is hard to put an issue like graduate education on the table, but surely it is fair to ask how many comprehensive doctoral-granting programs the state needs at this time. And contrary to a UC spokesman’s assertion, graduate education clearly competes for faculty time and energy with undergraduate education. Less of one frees up time to do more of the other.

My proposal for age-rationing may have little impact on the UC campuses but could free up tens of thousands of spaces in the CSU system, not to mention the community colleges. And what could make more sense than to secure full usage of the state’s 73 private colleges and universities in the state?

With all the talent and brain power in the system offices and in state government, it is sad that so little has been forthcoming. The stakes are high--a failure to confront the hard new realities of finance for citizens of the next generation will cripple their lives and undercut the state’s economy.