HAYWARD -- Eric Escoto is the quintessential overachiever, the poster child for disadvantaged students who have overcome personal obstacles to realize their dreams of attending college.

A junior majoring in biology at Cal State Hayward, Escoto says he would never have gained admission to the university had it not been for the Educational Opportunity Program (EOP). Now, he fears, EOP won't be around much longer to serve other low-income or academically disadvantaged students like himself.

Escoto's concerns are well-founded.

Hidden in Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's budget proposal is a $52 million general fund reduction for Cali-fornia State University outreach programs. Among the proposed cuts would be the $37 million used by 22 of the 23 CSU campuses to fund EOP, a program that provides admissions and retention support services for low-income and educationally disadvantaged students.

If the governor has his way, the 35-year-old program would fall victim to the budget ax come June. The loss would take from disadvantaged students yet another vehicle originally designed to help those who have not met standard admissions requirements gain access to the CSU system.

"The EOP program really gave me an opportunity to show what I can do in college," said Escoto, a 21-year-old Hayward resident. "A lot of minorities like myself would definitely lose the opportunity or drive to see that there are possibilities if the program is cut."

The elimination of the program would have an enormously adverse impact at Cal State Hayward, said Diana Balgas, interim director of support programs. The cuts would not only eliminate such EOP services as admissions assistance, career counseling, tutoring and academic advisement, but also doom CSUH's Summer Bridge Program, a five-week orientation program held once a year to ease the transition of EOP students into the college environment.

"This would be devastating," Balgas said.

The proposed reduction also would hit students' pocketbooks. EOP students, on average, receive about $1,200 a year in grants. Balgas said many students would have to use student loans to offset the loss of annual EOP grants.

"We definitely are concerned about it," Balgas said. "It appears a lot of California's poor people are being targeted to carry the weight of these budget cuts. The EOP program statewide is one of the most comprehensive. We're hoping the governor recon-siders the cuts."

About 10 percent of the 9,390 undergraduates at CSUH are EOP students, and an estimated 3,000 more seeking admissions for the fall applied to the university through the program.

While the governor's proposal would not affect enrollment or application status, it would decimate programs designed to improve the EOP students' chances of achiev-ing academic success.

"I would think it's the worst piece of legislation the governor has proposed," said Demone Hale, a San Francisco attorney who used EOP to get into CSUH in 1977. "He's talking about thinking out of the box and being innovative. But he's doing nothing different."

The importance of EOP has grown exponentially since 1996 when California voters approved Proposition 209, which prohibits the use of race-based quotas as part of the admission process at public universities. With schools unable to use race and socioeconomic factors in the selection process, EOP has stood as one of the few remaining programs that disadvantaged students can use to get into college.

If the program is eliminated, it will result in fewer minorities and educationally disadvantaged students being admitted into the CSU system.

"In my mind, this is going to push the clock back to the 1950s in terms of who is admitted into Cal State Hayward and other CSU campuses," said Robert Mahoney, interim director of student support services. "It's going to limit minority and low-income students from coming into the university. It's going to be a huge change.

"This is one of the most significant proposals to (involve) higher education in California. Unfortunately, a lot of people don't recognize it."