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When colleges ask applicants about their race or ethnicity, the forms always say that the question is optional. Increasingly, students are exercising their option -- and not answering the question.

Between 1991 and 2001, the number of such students increased by just over 100 percent, to 938,000, according to the latest "Minorities in Higher Education" report, released Monday by the American Council on Education. The numbers indicate that there are more college students whose race or ethnicity is unknown than there are Asian American students (937,000).

Why are so many more students declining to check a box? Theories abound, but the ACE researchers said that they really didn't know. However, the data do cast doubt on some of the theories.

For example, some admissions officers who have noticed this trend in recent years have blamed the debate over affirmative action. Some white students, they speculate, may think that they stand a better chance of admission by not checking white. Or minority students, fearful that stereotypes may hurt their chances of admission, want to be vague about their status.

But Eugene L. Anderson of ACE's Center for Policy Analysis, a co-author of the report, said that a third of the "no race" students are at community colleges, where open admissions means that there is no edge to be gained by being a minority or white student. And well over 500,000 "no race" students are enrolled at colleges that admit at least 75 percent of applicants -- so there isn't much of an admissions gain to be had.

Other theories that have been suggested: Students of multiple races or ethnicities don't like being forced to pick one. More students reject the idea of race or ethnicity altogether. More Latino students, who are frequently asked to designate a race after declaring themselves Latino, reject the race question.

Anderson said that some combination of factors are probably at play, and that the factors may differ from institution to institution. But he said it was important for colleges to get a handle on the issue. Educators and government officials look at enrollment demographics to try to figure out which groups may need more attention.

"This makes things a little more complicated for policy makers," Anderson said. "These students are coming from some other group, and the numbers for that group -- whichever it may be -- may be depressed to some extent."

The ACE report contains relatively little new data. The study's value is that it brings together considerable data -- from the Education Department, the Census Bureau and other sources -- in a single place. The report is also useful in examining long-term trends. The data for the last decade examined in the report show colleges becoming increasingly diverse, with every minority group showing substantial gains:

The one group that did not gain during that decade was white students. ACE officials said that the decline in white enrollments reflected a drop in the population of white high school graduates, and was not a reflection of some educational crisis facing white people.

The enrollment patterns were not uniform across the different sectors of higher education. Hispanic students, for example, made larger gains at two-year institutions during the last decade (up 82.1 percent) than at four-year institutions (up 67.6 percent). White enrollment fell more substantially at two-year colleges (down 7.8 percent) than at four-year institutions (down 2.3 percent).

The message of ACE officials presenting the data was that while there has been much progress, colleges have a ways to go. Black, Hispanic and American Indian students all lag behind their share of the population when it comes to college enrollment and degrees earned.

Copies of the report (Item #310479) are available from the ACE Fulfillment Service, Department 191, Washington, D.C. 20055-0191, or by calling (301) 632-6757. The report includes a CD-ROM with data files suitable for use in spreadsheets.