A half-dozen California State University campuses will not admit new students this spring, and three have closed their doors to first-time freshmen as California's largest four-year university system responds to a $345 million cut in state funding.

San Jose State University will continue to admit new undergraduate students, but those who want to attend the university in the spring are running out of time: The university will not accept applications after the end of this month. San Jose State typically gives students until the end of December to apply.

The effort to clamp down on enrollment means as many as 30,000 students may be shut out of the system's 23 campuses in the spring, CSU administrators estimate. The situation could become even more dire in fall 2004.

``From where I sit,'' said Cal State-Hayward Provost Frank Martino, ``California has reneged on its promise to provide young people with availability to higher education.''

Cal State-Hayward still is waiting to see a detailed campus budget but almost certainly will close admissions to first-time freshmen this spring, Martino said. That still probably won't be enough to live within its reduced budget, he said. Decisions about what to do will be made in the next few weeks.

San Francisco State will not accept any lower-division transfer students in the spring and may stop taking undergraduate applications as early as Sept. 15.

Still, campuses in Northern California fared much better than those in Southern California, where the enrollment boom known as Tidal Wave II has hit hardest. San Diego, Fullerton, Pomona and San Bernardino, for example, will not accept applicants for the spring.

In the past, the CSU system has guaranteed admission to the top third of the state's high school graduates who meet its course and grade requirements, as outlined in the California Master Plan for Higher Education. The system now serves nearly 408,000 students and has been growing rapidly in recent years as the number of college-age students expands and demand for college increases. Students can apply for admission at various points throughout the year.

Competition may get even stiffer by fall 2004. The Legislature has indicated it would not fund enrollment growth at CSU and the University of California in 2004 because of the state's continuing fiscal crisis.

The state has said it would fund a 7 percent enrollment increase for the CSU system this fiscal year, but the system is cutting back to 4.3 percent growth.

``It will be very competitive to get into any of the California state universities,'' said Marshall Goodman, San Jose State's provost. ``Talk about bad timing.''

Community college leaders say they will do all they can to accommodate students who can't get into California's four-year public universities, either because there is no room for them or they can't afford the 30 percent fee increase recently enacted by CSU and UC. Still, the ``ripple effect'' is a cause for concern.

``We're already in a situation where demand is at an all-time high, and we've had budget problems as well,'' said Philp Day, chancellor of City College of San Francisco.

``We're the safety net,'' Day said. ``But at times like this, we may have more people falling into that safety net than we can handle.''

Across the CSU system, Goodman said he expected to see more academic programs declared ``impacted,'' meaning that those programs can raise academic standards required for admission to deal with the high demand. Another strategy for reducing the number of students is cutting back on how many courses are offered.

For students such as Kathy Gonzalez, 19, that's the issue. Gonzalez, a student at De Anza community college in Cupertino, said she is more concerned she will not get the classes she needs when she transfers to San Jose State in the fall of 2005.

If she can't get into required classes, it would take longer to graduate, and that would cost her not only time but money, because fees recently increased.

``I want to make sure I graduate on time,'' said Gonzalez, who is keenly aware of competition, especially for high-demand courses. ``It's kind of stressing. You know what you want to do, but so many other students want the same thing.''

Still, the decision to limit spring enrollment is partly an effort to protect those students who do get in or already are there, campus officials say.

``Campuses are seeking to avoid the mistakes'' of the last state budget crunch of the early '90s when campuses continued to admit students but did not have the money to support all the courses they needed, said Goodman, the San Jose State provost.

That situation ``led to an erosion of services and it affected students' time to degree,'' Goodman said. ``You could get in, but you could never get out.''

CSU Chancellor Charles Reed has said the system's top priority is protecting the instructional program. San Jose State and San Francisco State will offer at least the same number of courses this spring as last, though Hayward plans to cut back.

Those most likely to be hurt by enrollment restrictions will be students who come from poor school districts that don't have the money to offer enough college advising, Goodman and other administrators said.

Unless the state finds a way to bring in more money, the pain is likely to continue, said Assemblyman Joe Simitian, D-Palo Alto, who chairs the budget subcommittee that deals with education funding.

``Otherwise we are faced with a pair of very poor choices,'' Simitian said. ``Let every qualified student attend by providing them with less in the way of quality and quantity, or keep the program strong but deny the opportunity to attend to clearly qualified students. Both of those are lousy choices.

``We have to answer a tough question: Do we really mean it when we say there is a place at CSU for every qualified student?''