The proportion of Asian-American college students has almost doubled each decade since the 1970s — to 8.8 percent of the total enrollment in 2005 — but those students do not enjoy the universal success that stereotypes suggest, according to a new report by the Higher Education Research Institute at the University of California at Los Angeles.

Three in 10 Asian-American students come from families with annual household incomes of less than $40,000, and one in five needs special tutoring or remedial work in English, says the report, “Beyond Myths: The Growth and Diversity of Asian-American College Freshmen, 1971-2005,” which can be ordered online.

Drawing on data from the research institute’s well-known freshman survey — with responses from more than 360,000 Asian and Asian-American first-time, full-time students at four-year institutions from 1971 to 2005 — it bills itself as the “largest compilation and analysis of data on Asian-American college students ever undertaken.”

Asian-American students tend not to take full advantage of financial-aid opportunities, instead relying on parents, relatives, and employment to pay for college, one of the report’s authors said in a written statement. The study found a significant increase in students who planned to work full time during college to cover costs.

The report also says that Asian-American students are more than twice as likely as their peers to apply to six or more colleges. But fewer Asian-Americans — 51.8 percent in 2005, compared with 69.8 percent nationally — were attending their first-choice institution. —Sara Lipka