During my undergraduate years at UCLA (1966-1970), a racial transformation was taking place. The number of Asian students was increasing dramatically. By now, of course, the campus is referred to as "UCLAsian"
Our explanation at the time was that the temperament of these students was well suited to a commuter school. Essentially none of them (grad or undergrad) lived on campus, and they hardly used any of the facilities. The joke was that they never even used the restrooms--and this was not much of an exaggeration. They just came in the morning, and left in the afternoon. Few of them, especially if recent immigrants, even went to the sports events, and in that era they were a huge deal.
Thus, they paid their tuition, and were very low maintenance. At the same time, though, vast numbers of extremely unqualified "other" minorities were also admitted.
It's time to put two and two together.
In a successful, if cynical, attempt to keep up the median entering SAT scores, and grade point averages--OVERALL--the Asians would simply counterbalance the effect of the "other" minority groups. No one would dare look deeper than the overall figures, since after all, THAT would be racist.
Now you know.