Faced with a multibillion-dollar budget deficit, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and state higher education officials are trying to relieve the burden on the state by redirecting several thousand high school seniors from California's public four-year universities to community colleges for their first two years of school. The California effort emerges as state and federal leaders across the country increasingly are touting the potential for community colleges--a low-cost option that many teenagers have seen as a last resort--to accommodate the expanding ranks of high school graduates seeking a higher education. Nationwide economic and demographic forces are also guiding more students into community colleges--in particular, the rising price of four-year institutions and the expanding pool of college-bound high school seniors, many of them from low-income families. Some California community college administrators, meanwhile, question whether their schools can accommodate more freshmen. This academic year, the state's 109 public two-year colleges turned away an estimated 175,000 students because of limits on enrollment and class space, and higher fees.