Fresno State will impose earlier application deadlines to limit enrollment and comply with systemwide growth controls announced Wednesday by California State University Chancellor Charles Reed.

The new, shortened enrollment periods at California State University, Fresno, will be followed by a policy of zero enrollment growth for the 2004-2005 academic year.

The state budget crisis had yielded a 30% increase in student fees in the CSU system and at least a 25% fee increase for the University of California system.

Of prime interest in the San Joaquin Valley is a one-year delay, to 2005, for the scheduled opening of UC Merced.

The one-time operational funds of $7.3 million in the state budget for UC Merced, the UC system's planned 10th campus, is $4 million less than the $11.3 million in Gov. Davis' proposed budget and half the $15 million that UC officials requested.

Reed announced the new enrollment limits in response to the largest budget cuts in CSU history. He said that reducing enrollment growth, less drastic than reducing enrollment, will mean denying admission to up to 30,000 students in the CSU system next spring.

Reed wrote the CSU system's 23 presidents, including president John Welty of Fresno State, asking them "in the strongest terms" to hold to enrollment limits this coming academic year. Reed's call for limits reflect a $345.2 million cut in the CSU budget, contained in the proposed state budget approved by the Legislature. That reduction represents a 13% cut in CSU's general fund budget of $2.6 billion.

The CSU system is the largest public university in the United States with 408,000 students and 45,000 faculty and staff members. But Reed said the state budget crisis has pushed CSU into "a totally new budget environment" that will essentially cut enrollment growth almost by half.

"Of paramount importance is the unquestionable fact that California State University funding has declined to a level at which quality will erode," Reed said. "Adding more students to already inadequate funding will only exacerbate this problem.

"We have also reached a point where true access to needed courses, adequate course loads and an efficient path to graduation are threatened. More students exceeding existing funded enrollment targets will only block authentic access."

This translates at Fresno State into the new application limits announced by Bernie Vinovrski, assistant vice president for enrollment. He said Fresno State had anticipated limits, so the university is now "a little ahead of the game."

Fresno State is too far into the fall semester enrollment cycle to restrict fall numbers further. So Vinovrski and the university's enrollment management committee have settled on a strategy for January. The new strategy's provisions include:

Admitting no first-time freshmen at mid-year.

Admitting no lower-division transfer students at mid-year.

A one-month application period for upper-division transfer students.

Two months for graduate students to apply.

Vinovrski warned students who hope to enter Fresno State for the spring semester to begin applying now. The January application cycle begins Friday.

The Chancellor's Office has given Fresno State a new, reduced enrollment maximum of 17,428 full-time students for the coming academic year. The total student count may be higher if part-time students' units translate into the equivalent of 17,428 full-time students. Fresno State's enrollment goal for the coming year had been 17,800 as of last fall.

The actual full-time enrollment last fall was 17,324.

"We are not reducing enrollment," Vinovrski said. "We are reducing enrollment growth."

That will change in 2004, he said: "Enrollment will be exactly the same. Zero growth. We will have the earliest closing deadlines in the history of this institution. I predict they will be in January or February instead of April for first-time freshmen and transfer students. The word is, Apply early."

With enrollment limited at Fresno State, more students are expected to consider the area's community colleges. But state budget troubles touch them, too.

Spokeswoman Teresa Patterson of the State Center Community College District said it is adding 150 class sections in the fall to accommodate additional students. That enrollment may be constrained by higher per-unit fees for classes. The California Community College system is contemplating increasing the fees from $11 to $18 per unit.

"Students need to know there are financial-aid options, fee waivers and financial aid," Patterson said.

Students also should understand that college classes may become less convenient, she said. Students may have to mix courses at Fresno City College with others at campuses in Reedley, Clovis and Madera -- and at less convenient times.

Last year, the state funded the State Center district for the equivalent of 23,407 full-time credit students. This year, the state is saying it will allow for 23,943 students, representing enrollment growth of 2.29%. The state will not fund any increase beyond that, Patterson said.

At UC Merced, construction and faculty recruitment continue, and the university has admitted future students now studying in community colleges.

UC Merced officials say they are well beyond the point of turning back from the campus' eventual opening. UC officials said they will seek places on other UC campuses for community college students already admitted to UC Merced for fall 2004.