The Legislature should redefine eligibility requirements for the state's public universities and adopt other policy changes to ensure that budget cuts don't hamper California's promise to provide college access to all eligible students, a new report recommends.

The report, released Friday by the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst's Office, comes after California State University and University of California announced they will have to turn away thousands of qualified applicants next year because they won't receive adequate state funding to serve them.

University officials have worried the cuts undermine the state's Master Plan for Higher Education, a 60-year-old blueprint for public colleges that guarantees a space in college to all California students.

The plan says that UC will admit the top 12.5 percent of the state's high school students, and CSU will admit the top 33 percent. Other students are guaranteed a space in community colleges.

But the LAO report said UC and CSU have historically accepted more students than the plan recommends, and the Legislature should re-examine the systems' admissions policies to ensure they are meeting the targets outlined in the Master Plan.

"We acknowledge that's going to require admitting fewer students than would have been admitted under better fiscal times," said Anthony Simbol, senior fiscal and policy analyst with the LAO and the report's author.

"It's just, given the fiscal situation, our bottom line is we think steps can be taken to ensure the Master Plan commitment because we're actually doing quite well," he added.

The report recommends the Legislature establish a new policy calling on UC and CSU to redirect a portion of their qualified freshmen into community colleges to complete lower-division courses. It also suggests the Legislature examine alternate ways for defining eligibility for CSU and UC, such as a system that relies solely on high school grade-point averages and scores on California standards tests.

"The current eligibility requirements established by UC and CSU may not accurately define the state's top high school graduates as called for in the Master Plan," the report said. "... Under (the LAO's) scenario, UC and CSU eligibility requirements would be objective, transparent and based on measurements aligned to K-12 curriculum standards."

The LAO's report merely outlines policy issues for the Legislature to consider, but UC and CSU officials said they have some concerns with the report, specifically with suggestions that the Legislature could play a bigger role in determining the system's eligibility requirements.

"The Legislature should monitor those policies, but I don't think they need to get involved in the details of those policies," said CSU spokeswoman Colleen Bentley-Adler.

She said the report doesn't take into account the funding restrictions CSU and UC are operating under.

"It's going to be very, very difficult to admit all eligible students, even if we do all the admissions tightening the LAO recommends," Bentley-Adler said. "There are still going to be some eligible students out there that aren't going to find a place."