Addressing higher education officials and faculty yesterday, Gov.-elect Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. warned that Maryland's colleges and universities won't be spared as he seeks to close the state's budget gap.

At a forum at Goucher College, Ehrlich spoke candidly about the impact on higher education of the projected $1.2 billion shortfall in next year's state budget. He stopped short of estimating a dollar figure for cuts, but said campuses should prepare to bear their share of statewide reductions.

"Do I want to whack higher education? Of course not," Ehrlich told an audience of about 175 dominated by faculty and administrators from Goucher and other private and public colleges in the state. "But I cannot make promises to anybody."

Later, when asked by Goucher President Sanford J. Ungar whether colleges and universities should be worried about a major, long-term drop-off in state support, Ehrlich added, "You shouldn't be worried. But is there a short-term problem? Yes. I'd be lying to you if I didn't say there was."

Administrators at the state's 13 public colleges and universities have been watching Ehrlich closely for signs of his intentions for their nearly $1 billion annual state appropriation, which is about 10 percent of the state's general fund. Spending for kindergarten to 12th-grade education is higher, but the state is required by its constitution to fund those schools adequately, a protection not given to higher education.

Gov. Parris N. Glendening has asked the state's public campuses to cut this year's spending by 3.5 percent to help make up the $600 million shortfall in the current budget. But higher education officials say they are far more concerned about the potentially much-larger cuts in the budget Ehrlich will announce next month.

At a Board of Regents meeting last week, Vice Chancellor Joseph F. Vivona said that if the shortfall were spread equally among all state agencies, the system, which is requesting a $38 million increase next year, could instead face a reduction of about $56 million, or 14 percent.

"I'm worried about the next cut," said University of Maryland, Baltimore County President Freeman A. Hrabowski III, who attended yesterday's forum.

University officials say privately they are especially wary because they benefited so much from spending increases under Glendening, and hope Ehrlich doesn't assume they can therefore absorb big cuts. After plummeting in the early 1990s, the state's support for the system increased by an average of 12 percent a year during Glendening's second term - the highest increases in the nation.

Yesterday, Ehrlich said the system had enjoyed a "dramatic increase" over the past few years, and that state spending in general under Glendening "grew out of proportion" with the state's means. But he also said that higher education has been "one of the successes" of the Glendening administration.

Whatever the reduction next year, Ehrlich said he would direct colleges to protect financial aid and class offerings and instead focus cuts on administration and campus construction.

The other area Ehrlich hoped to protect, he said, was funding for the state's historically black colleges. A federally mandated commission found last year that Coppin State College needs $300 million in capital funding over the next 10 years to make up for past neglect.

"We have obligations with regard to" the historically black colleges, he said, "and I intend to fulfill them. The only question is how quickly we can do it."