Maryland's public colleges and universities must consider limiting or reducing the number of students they enroll if budget cuts continue in coming years, the leader of the state's higher education system said yesterday.

William E. Kirwan, chancellor of the state system, argued that allowing enrollments to grow would stretch public colleges too far under current funding levels.

"If the state doesn't provide adequate funds, we will grow ourselves into mediocrity," he said.

Kirwan's statements came as the Board of Regents debated how to absorb an anticipated $50 million in budget cuts among the system's 11 degree-granting institutions and two research centers. The campuses' budgets were cut by more than $67 million this year, then frozen by the legislature for the coming year.

After eliminating hundreds of jobs and increasing tuition significantly, the campuses have been warned by Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. (R) that they may need to cut further as he tries to balance the budget when he vetoes a package of corporate taxes approved by the General Assembly this spring.

Though system officials have broached the prospect of an enrollment cap before, yesterday's meeting marked the first time that Kirwan had pushed the idea so firmly. Several regents chimed in with support for a cap.

In addition to reducing the strain on campus budgets, enrollment caps could help leaders in higher education exert more political pressure on elected officials, who may be sensitive to voters' complaints about their children being turned away from state institutions.

It mirrors a strategy being employed at George Mason University. Beset by Virginia's similar fiscal crisis, officials at GMU announced last month they have temporarily abandoned expansion plans that would have made it the state's largest university by 2007 -- unless state officials reverse several years of decreasing funding.

Though higher education officials have not yet sketched out the details of an enrollment cap in Maryland, they said the impact probably would be felt most sharply at the campuses that had planned to grow dramatically over the next several years -- Bowie State University, the University of Maryland Eastern Shore, Frostburg State University, Coppin State College and Salisbury University.

The flagship University of Maryland -- with 30,000 students already one of the largest in the country -- plans only minor growth over the next decade.

Any enrollment cap would not go into effect until at least fall 2004, leaving the regents to debate how to impose the cuts that probably will be necessary this summer.

They expect to impose additional tuition increases -- on top of a midyear increase approved in January -- that would raise student costs by nearly 20 percent over last fall's charges. And they acknowledge that widespread layoffs probably will follow as well. The institutions also could be forced to dig into their reserve funds, which officials warned yesterday could jeopardize the system's bond rating.

Meanwhile, divisions have sprung up over how to administer the cuts fairly within and among the individual campuses. Some presidents argue that all institutions should take an equal percentage of the cuts, while others advocate that institutions considered to be historically underfunded compared with the others be granted a break.

In an interview before the regents' meeting, the dean of the University of Maryland College of Agriculture and Natural Resources complained that cooperative extension services are in line to take a disproportionate hit.

Thomas A. Fretz said the proposed 9 percent cut would force him to eliminate about 40 of 300 cooperative extension staff members, including parenting, nutrition and financial educators who counsel low-income residents across the state. The cuts also would harm the 4-H programs the university runs for adolescents across Maryland.

George Cathcart, a spokesman for U-Md., said university leaders felt they had to focus their cuts on facets of the institution "that don't concern the academic mission."

"If we raise tuition, we want to look at what students are paying for," he said.

But Fretz said a reduction in cooperative extension budgets would undercut U-Md.'s mission as a land-grant university. "I think they're saying this community outreach isn't all that important," he said. "I think the university has a mission other than the elite group of students we attract."