The University of California released new numbers on the racial demographics of its student applicants last week, and the number of Latino students who applied to the public university system for 2011 rose by 18 percent in the last year.

The Chronicle of Higher Ed reports that if trends continue the way they have been, Latino students will soon make up the largest group of students applying the UC system, surpassing Asian Americans and whites.

Applications to the UC system are up across the board. The UC system received 6.1 percent more applications for the 2011-2012 academic year, the San Francisco Chronicle reports.

The news comes on the heels of new California Gov. Jerry Brown’s announcement that he proposed cutting $500 million from the University of California budget to close the state’s massive deficit. All in all, the cuts to the state’s public higher education system would amount to $1.4 billion.

But just because applications are up doesn’t mean it directly translates to more Latino students in the UC system. In 2009 the UC system reported that students who identify as Latino or Chicano increased their respective enrollments by 6 and 9 percent. But even though black, Latino and Native American students made up almost half of all of the state’s high school graduates in 2008, they were only 20 percent of the UC system’s student population.