BERKELEY -- Community college student Anoop Kaur expected to have to work hard and make good grades to transfer to the prestigious University of California.

She didn't expect her future to depend on whether state officials have the smarts to handle California's money troubles.

This month, students like Kaur got a jolt when the UC system closed its doors on almost all midyear community college transfers, saying they couldn't afford to take 1,500 students for the next term.

And it's likely to get much worse next fall. UC may have to cut enrollment growth by 5,000 students, and the California State University system also expects to turn away thousands of students.

"We've just got some serious problems here,' said UC Regent Ward Connerly. "This is only the tip of the iceberg in terms of number of students that we have to turn away.'

The disappointed students were the latest casualties of a multibillion-dollar budget mess that set the stage for the raucous attempt to recall Gov. Gray Davis.

More than that, the rejections, made without even looking at the applications, were a blow to a longtime social contract, known as the Master Plan for Higher Education, that assures California's top students a place at the UC.

"It's just not something that's fair,' said Kaur, a student at Ohlone College in the San Francisco suburb of Fremont. "A lot of students who come to Ohlone or other community colleges come because it's cheaper or they need to do better. They work so hard. To cut that off it's really not fair.'

UC has tried to find other ways of dealing with a $410 million cut in state funding, but system President Richard C. Atkinson said "we have reached a point where the educational experience at the University of California will be severely compromised if we continue to grow without funding to support new students.'

Lawmakers have already said they won't fund enrollment growth for 2004-05 at the nine- campus UC system, which has about 200,000 students, or the 23-campus California State University system.

A CSU grad who started out at community college himself, Connerly isn't happy about denying transfers but says UC doesn't have a lot of options right now. "We're going to have to make some serious changes in how we do business.'

Under the Master Plan, drafted under the leadership of former UC President Clark Kerr and released in 1960, the state promises a place at UC for community college students who meet grade requirements and for the top 12.5 percent of California high school students. CSU, which has about 400,000 students and is the nation's largest public university system, promises to take the top one- third of California high school graduates.

The problem is not limited to California; budgets are being cut and tuition raised at four-year public colleges and universities in 49 of the 50 states.

Some community college transfers were able to get into UC this spring, namely the 500 students who had signed contracts with individual campuses guaranteeing them a spot under partnership agreements set up between some UC campuses and local colleges.