Community colleges are the sector of Idaho higher education that works best, providing greater educational opportunities for more students at less money.

But what if those opportunities dry up?

Cathy Holland-Smith, the Idaho Legislature's budget director, told the Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee last week that lawmakers might have to consider capping college enrollments - especially at year-old College of Western Idaho in Nampa. CWI needs $1.97 million more for the current budget year alone because of unexpected enrollment growth.

CWI has more than 3,400 students - 286 percent more than last year. Some estimates see it pushing 10,000 students in a couple of years.

An enrollment cap at CWI wouldn't directly affect the College of Southern Idaho, with 8,000 students, and North Idaho College, with 5,659, but it would be a watershed event for an Idaho higher education system that has long prided itself on accessibility.

And as the experience of other states has shown, enrollment caps anywhere in a higher ed system do bad things to the whole system.

Case in point: California.

Both the 191,0000-student, 10-campus University of California system and the 417,000-student, 23-campus California State University system limited enrollment this fall. Among other nasty consequences, that left thousands of community college students with no place to go, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education, - a print and online source of education news and information for college and university faculty and administrators.

And while there's no cap on the 2.9 million-student, 110-campus California Community College System, there may as well be. Because of an $840 million budget cut, most students find it hard to get into classes they need to earn an associate's degree.

In the 100,000-student, four-campus San Diego Community College District, for example, 600 classes were cut this fall, forcing the district to turn away 18,000 students and advise them to register early for spring semester.

Most JFAC members consider enrollment caps to be a last resort, and that's good. But the budget-writers need to find $51 million to balance the books this year and much more to fill gaps in the 2011 spending blueprint, so anything's possible.

California's problems aren't Idaho's, but they're instructive. It will take decades for the Golden State's higher education system to bounce back in terms of quality, access, cost-effectiveness and ability to deliver services - in large part because of the distortions caused by restricting enrollment.

Let's not go there.