The first freshman class selected to Florida's state college system since Gov. Jeb Bush put an end to race-based admissions has shown, instead of a decrease in minority enrollment, an increase of 12 percent.
Mr. Bush, whose plan allows the admission of the top 20 percent of graduating seniors from each state high school, whether predominantly black, white or Hispanic, said the increase was proof that diversity in other college systems could be accomplished without affirmative action.
''The most diverse in history,'' Mr. Bush said of the incoming freshmen, who are the first students to be admitted without affirmative action mandates since racial set-asides were put in place in Florida in 1978.
He said his plan, called One Florida, produced an incoming class of more than 40 percent minorities -- blacks, Hispanics, Asians and Native Americans -- and could be a model for other states whose affirmative action laws are being challenged in the courts or at the polls.
But critics of the plan say it is far too soon, after one year, to call the plan a success. Some experts on education reform called the new system a gimmick that simply gives affirmative action a new name.
Mr. Bush dismissed the criticism as he celebrated what he said was a clear victory in a difficult social and political arena. Black leaders here had said the plan would cripple college admissions of blacks.
''I've spent the last 10 months getting blistered by people who didn't believe we could do this,'' Mr. Bush said.
Unlike in Texas and California, which have similar programs that produced initial drops in minority enrollment, ''we did not wait for a legal challenge or a ballot initiative,'' said Mr. Bush.
Texas courts threw out affirmative action laws in 1996, but the state eventually restored its racial mix on college campuses under a plan in Texas under Gov. George W. Bush that admitted the top 10 percent of students in each school.
Jeb Bush said he used elements of the Texas plan in his own. But it was California's end to affirmative action, in a statewide vote in 1997, that may have forced the Florida governor's hand.
Ward Connerly, a businessman and black conservative who led the battle to end affirmative action in California, had turned his attentions to Florida, and Mr. Bush's One Florida plan was seen as a way to blunt that looming battle in a year that his brother was running for president.
Critics of the plan, who fought against it when Mr. Bush unveiled it in November, said it is too soon to claim victory, and said the affirmative action program he ended was already steadily improving minority enrollment.
Mr. Bush said the Florida plan does something old affirmative action did not do: It allows students to pursue an education without the stigma of set-asides and lowered admission standards.
''Every student entering our system today can be proud of what we accomplished, and be confident that achievement, not skin color or ethnic background, is the only measure of merit in our universities,'' he said.
Of the 3,202 incoming students, 1,234 were minorities, and all 10 colleges in the state system increased their enrollment of blacks, according to statistics from the university system.
That increase of black enrollment was not just at predominantly black colleges, but also at Florida's two leading state-run universities -- the University of Florida, in Gainesville, and Florida State University, in Tallahassee.
The number of enrolling black students at the University of Florida was up 33 percent from last year, and up 21 percent from last year at Florida State.
The number of Hispanic students enrolling at the University of Florida grew by 19 percent, and by 24 percent at Florida State.
The two leading universities enrolled 577 more black and Hispanic students this year than last year.
In the past, universities had put in place a double standard for minorities, and quotas.
''Now everybody's in the pool,'' said Carmen Brown, Director of Admissions at Florida International University.
No matter how rich or poor the neighborhood a school serves, the top 20 percent of students will be accepted to one of the state's 10 universities.
Mr. Bush said the state's universities aggressively recruited the best minority students who qualified under the plan.
Experts on education reform said the plan merely renamed affirmative action.
Sam J. Yarger, Dean of the School of Education at the University of Miami, said the plan breaks down because one school's number one student may not rank in another school's top 10 percent.
It creates quota systems in each school, ''which is not related to any external standard,'' said Mr. Yarger.
''We should call Florida One Bush's Theory of Relativity,'' he said.
An article on Wednesday about the rise in minority enrollment in Florida colleges since the state ended race-based admissions misstated the year in which California voters ended affirmative action. It was 1996, not 1997.