Private colleges in Washington State would be allowed, for the first time, to receive state aid for students enrolling in high-demand programs, under a controversial budget provision that state lawmakers passed late last week.

The proposal is now pending before Gov. Gary Locke, a Democrat, who is still debating whether to endorse the plan, according to Marc E. Webster, a budget assistant for higher education in the governor's office. Governor Locke is expected to decide sometime this week.

Proponents of the plan, which has been included in the Legislature's supplemental budget for 2004-5, argue that it could increase opportunities for students who are interested in pursuing programs in academic areas -- such as computer science, nursing, and special education -- that are in high demand in the state.

Public two-year and four-year institutions are currently serving 18,000 more full-time students than the state provides money to support, state officials said, while private institutions have said that they have space for more students.

"We have to take advantage of every resource within the state," said Bruce Botka, director of government relations for Washington's Higher Education Coordinating Board.

However, some public-college officials have voiced concerns about allowing private institutions to benefit from public dollars when there is not enough state aid to meet the needs of state colleges and universities.

"We're expanding the pool of institutions competing for a limited amount of money that already is not enough," said Larry Ganders, assistant to the president at Washington State University. He argued that public institutions in Washington have the space to enroll more students but are simply limited in how many they can take by the amount of state operating funds they receive.

Governor Locke, too, is considering the precedent that could be set by supporting a plan that would allow state funds to be sent to private colleges, according to Mr. Webster. "He's obviously worried about opening the door to voucherlike programs," Mr. Webster said.

But, Mr. Webster added, the governor also believes the program involved has been good for the state and wants to support the legislative plan to increase money for it.

Under the Legislature's budget, private colleges in 2004-5 would be able to compete with public universities for funds awarded by a competitive-grant program that encourages institutions to provide academic offerings that would train students for jobs that are in high demand by businesses in the state.

The state grant program provides universities more money per student for those high-demand courses of study because many of them are more expensive to run than other academic programs. On average, institutions receive about $11,000 per full-time student in the high-demand programs, versus about $5,500 per student in other programs.

The Legislature's budget would provide $9-million for the competitive-grant program in 2004-5. That is more than three times the $2.7-million the program is receiving in 2003-4 and would be enough to support about 850 full-time students in high-demand programs.