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Despite the fact the number of minority students in colleges and universities has doubled over the past 20 years, white students still comprise the majority of enrolled students in the country, according to a report released last week by the American Council on Education.

However, the report does not reflect the minority enrollment trend found at University of California schools, where the percentage of enrolled minority students outnumbered the percentage of enrolled white students.

While some minority group enrollments in the country are increasing faster than certain minority groups in the UC, overall the percentage enrolled in the UC is significantly higher than the country’s percentage.

The UC system has an enrollment that predominantly consists of minority students, with whites making up 35 percent of enrolled students in 2000. At UCLA, about 70 percent of enrolled students were minorities in 2000.

In comparison, almost 70 percent of the students enrolled in higher education in the country were white.

The ACE’s Minorities in Higher Education Annual Status Report, released Oct. 8, showed increasing enrollment among all minority groups from 1980 to 2001.

During these 20 years, the number of black students enrolled in higher education increased by 56 percent, and the number of both enrolled Latino and Asian American students more than tripled.

Compared to the rest of the country, California also appeared to have a higher rate of growth among minority students, said Eugene Anderson, research associate at the ACE’s Office of Minorities in Higher Education.

The increase in enrollment of minority students in California colleges and universities can be attributed to state efforts within the last five years to give minority students better opportunities to attend schools, said Murray Haberman, senior policy analyst for the California Postsecondary Education Commission.

“The state has made a commitment to outreach to groups of students who have historically not participated in secondary education ... by making them better informed about what they need to achieve, the test scores and grades they need in order to be eligible to a state university,” he said.

But state budget cuts have led to substantial budget reductions for outreach programs that target minority groups.

The changes in minority student enrollment are mirrored in changes in state demographics.

Analysts say the main reasons for the growth in minority student enrollment are the increasing diversity in California and an increased population growth rate.

“This issue is predominantly regional, especially when it comes to public institutions. ... They draw from the state population, so you have a huge regional effect,” said Mitchell Chang, an associate professor at the UCLA education department who studies minority groups in education.

As a result, California’s large Asian American and Latino population can account for the high percentage of these minority students who enroll in state postsecondary schools.

“There have been plenty of stories throughout the ’90s about the growth of the minority population in California, especially among the Spanish-Latino community,” Anderson said.

Although the UC enrolls a higher percentage of Latino students than the rest of the country, the UC’s black and American Indian enrollment numbers are lower than that of the country’s, and American Indian enrollment in the UC has decreased since 2000.

But having a minority enrollment decrease is rare in the UC. All other minority group enrollments have increased in the UC, some with much larger enrollment percentages than the enrollment percentages of the rest of the United States.

Asian Americans make up about 6 percent of the students enrolled in higher education in the country, but they make up about 35 percent of the UC’s enrolled student population.

UCLA also enrolls a high number of Asian Americans. Since fall 1994, UCLA has been enrolling more Asian American students than white students.

“The composition is going to change, and hopefully in a direction that reflects the composition of the state, at least for UCLA. The absolute numbers (of enrolled white students) will probably stay the same, but the overall representation or proportion may decrease (from enrolling more minorities),” Chang said.