In his syndicated column, Thomas D. Elias outlined the crisis facing future California university students. More California high school students are now eligible for admission to a University of California or California State campus than ever before. But unfortunately, California’s university system is operating under a serious budget crunch, and will have to scale back the number of admitted students.

From 2003 to 2007, academic performance has improved remarkably, particularly among Latino students. The number of high school graduates went up 55%, from 18,300 to 28,300. Across the state, there is a 11% increase of students eligible for the state’s public universities. The grand total is that 13.4% of California’s high school graduates should be able to enter the University of California, and 32.7% should be eligible for Cal State.

But thanks to the continuing economic crisis, Cal State will accept 10,000 fewer students, and UC is also drastically reducing enrollment. “Our public higher education systems face a growing challenge of accommodating more students with reduced state funding,” said Murray Haberman, executive director of the California Postsecondary Education Commission.

The lower admission rate is not the only problem. Aggravating the problem is a sharp increase in the demand for financial aid. As more students qualify for a college education, more financially strapped families will need financial aid. To make matters worse, the universities will more than likely hike tuition and fees to cover budget shortfalls.

The domino effect still does not end there. As the state government scrambles to cut the budget and save money, many college scholarships will be in cross hairs, so there will far fewer scholarships available.

These trends could spell trouble for California’s economic prospects. According to the Public Policy Institute, if California cannot provide a large enough pool of college graduates, businesses may seek to relocate elsewhere.

A stopgap measure is students attending community colleges until they can gain admission into an university. But as any student can tell you, studying at a community college is simply not the same thing as studying at a university.

But until the recession begins to ease, California’s higher education woes will only get worse.