It was a bold promise that became a model for the rest of the nation: Any Californian who wanted a college education could have one. Money, social background and geography were not to be barriers.

With that mission, California built its vast, tiered system of public higher education with a door that opened for high school graduates with the right grades.

Three distinct institutions -- the University of California, California State University and California Community Colleges -- grew into 140 campuses statewide, where students could buy a first-rate education for little money.

Now, California's record budget crisis has state leaders backing off that pledge. Their decision to halt money for enrollment growth -- at least for next year and possibly beyond -- means that for the first time since the master plan took shape 43 years ago, California will not provide a slot for all students eligible for one of its four-year colleges. Enrollment will be capped, and students will be turned away -- by the thousands.

At the same time, fees will rise at all three institutions, a move also expected to keep some high school graduates from going on to college.

"The promise of the master plan was so generous. Everybody could go," said Jane Wellman, senior associate with the Washington, D.C.-based Institute for Higher Education Policy.

"Now, you have an explicit, out-front decision that wholesale revisions to the California promise are going to have to be made. I would say now that California is the anti-model."

As California's public treasury began to dry up and the gap between spending and revenue ballooned to $38.2 billion this year, lawmakers looked for cuts in almost every public sector. Higher education took a heavy hit, with more than $700 million cut from the UC and CSU systems.

University officials say the cuts left them with little or no money to add new faculty and classes to accommodate the growing numbers of potential students.

For the first time in its history, CSU has made a formal decision to turn away qualified students this spring -- a move expected to keep out as many as 30,000 students across the 23-campus system, the nation's largest.

UC leaders likely will follow in the fall of 2004 with plans to freeze enrollment growth for freshmen, transfer students and graduate students. That decision would block entry for an estimated 5,000 eligible students.

Higher-education experts say the decisions mark the first major retreat from the state's decades-old Master Plan for Higher Education, a heralded public policy that made California a pioneer in bringing higher education to the masses.

"California has not rationed its higher education before," CSU Chancellor Charles Reed said. "Students who have not done as well in high school could suffer the most. We have given them a chance to work on their English and math here, but now we may have to tell them to do that at the community colleges and transfer to us later."

The timing couldn't be worse.

As the economy languishes, California high schools are churning out record numbers of graduates, prompting an enrollment boom at public colleges that educators call Tidal Wave II. Both CSU and UC grew 5 percent to 7 percent a year in the past several years and expect growth demands to remain at that level through 2010.

The Legislature, however, said the state would provide no money for growth next year. If California's economic fortunes don't turn around in two years, the enrollment freezes could persist.

"This is a serious mismatch of needs for students and the economic times," said Patrick Callan, president of the San Jose-based National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education. "If you get several years of this in a row, students are going to stop believing in the promise. They will think it doesn't matter how hard you work, you could still be frozen out."

Under the master plan, the top 12.5 percent of California's high school graduates are promised a seat at one of the nine UC campuses. The top third are guaranteed the same at CSU. For every other high school graduate, there would be a slot in the 108 community colleges, where students could spend two years, beef up their academic résumés and transfer to UC or CSU.

But these are tough times for higher education across the country, and leaders say they've been forced to make grim choices.

Budget shortfalls set records this year in many states, prompting lawmakers to carve deeply into public university budgets that had expanded rapidly during the technology-driven boom of the late 1990s and 2000.

One of the chief areas taking a hit is tuition. After several years of steady or decreasing fees, university leaders nationwide are asking students to pay a larger share of the tab, and California has led the way.

UC and CSU fees have risen 40 percent since December. The price tag for community college fees is to increase this fall from $11 per unit to $18.

Still, higher education officials note that students have endured tuition increases and program cuts during other lean times. They cite the state's last budget crisis 10 years ago, when fees took a similar jump, and people adapted.

But this year is different for California because of what CSU's Reed calls the "double whammy."

"At the very time that California's economy and budget are shrinking, its need for higher education and demand for access is accelerating," Reed said. "It's a scary thing."

Some experts point to signs of shrinking access long before the latest budget crisis.

One measure of California's success in keeping college accessible to a range of students has been its participation rates, said David Longanecker, executive director of the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education.

In 1996, 61 percent of recent California high school graduates became first-time freshmen at a state college or university, according to commission figures. By 2000, California's number dropped to 43 percent, though it remained ahead of other Western states, where the same figure averaged 40 percent.

In a different evaluation of college-going rates done last year, the National Center found that 34 percent of California students enrolled in college right after high school -- above average nationwide, but fewer than in North Dakota, Massachusetts and New Jersey.

"What had been a state that led the nation became quite average," Longanecker said.

When it comes to college graduation rates, the story gets worse. In 1999, according to the National Center, California ranked 35th in the nation for producing college students who completed baccalaureate degrees.

Where California kept an edge was affordability -- but only when cost-of-living expenses aren't included.

"For the quality of education you get in California, particularly at the UC, no one can beat that combination," Wellman said.

Experts agree that California's tradition of higher education is facing an important test. What's murky is whether the choices being made during the economic crunch will become permanent.

"The pattern in California has been that we spend lavishly on higher education when times are good, and in bad times, we cut it ruthlessly," Callan said. "It's all about timing ... students who finish high school in good economic times are the lucky ones."

For students such as Guadalupe Alvarado, the 18-year-old daughter of immigrant farm workers, timing matters a lot.

"I'm the first in my family to go to college, and it's important for me to set that example for my brothers and sister," said Alvarado, who will be a freshman at CSU, Sacramento, this fall.

"When I first decided I could get in and afford to go, it cost 40 percent less. Now, it's going to be much more, but I will do everything I can to make sure that the money doesn't keep me out."