Forty thousand spots to be cut in three years. 266,152 total applications for the 2010-11 academic year. A 230-percent increase in transfer applications. The numbers of the ongoing crisis at the California State University are staggering.

The University of California faces similar obstacles: an estimated 4,600 fewer spots in two years and a potential 32 percent fee hike for the next academic year. But the sheer magnitude of the CSU enrollment cuts, especially in the face of a 53-percent increase in total applications, may better represent the dire situation faced by California's public universities.

The CSU system has already slashed nearly 10,000 spots and on Tuesday Chancellor Charles B. Reed announced the system would go forward with further cuts over the next two years.

According to the Chronicle of Higher Education, California public colleges plan to cut nearly 300,000 students from their campuses in the next year and a half. For these students, the enrollment cuts could very well make the prospect of attending college an impossibility. Especially for Californians of limited means, higher education is increasingly becoming out of reach. The door of opportunity is being shut in the faces of more and more qualified students each year.

If there was any question of whether public universities are at a crossroads, faced with the prospect of declining quality or greatly diminished access, these numbers blatantly throw any doubt out the window. And in a broader view, beyond these ostensibly one-time cuts, it's clear that the overall effect of this ongoing disinvestment on Californians and the state's future could be truly devastating.