Thinking Citizen Blog — The College Gender Gap: Men Fall to 40.5% of Enrollment

Thinking Citizen Blog — Saturday is Justice, Freedom, Law, and Values Day

Today’s Topic: The College Gender Gap: Men Fall to 40.5% of Enrollment

Why? So what? During the last academic year, overall college enrollment dropped by 1.5 million and “men accounted for 71% of the decline.” The gap, which increases at graduation, has been widening slowly for 40 years. The result is a dirty little admissions secret: there is a thumb on the scale for boys to improve the gender balance. Is this the right thing to do? Today, some excerpts from two articles. Experts — please chime in. Correct, elaborate, elucidate.

HOW DOES THE GAP DIFFER ACROSS RACE, GEOGRAPHY, AND CLASS?

1. “The college gender gap cuts across race, geography, and economic background.”

2. “For the most part, white men — once the predominant group on American. campuses — no longer hold a statistical edge in enrollment rates.”

3. “Enrollment rates for poor and working-class white men are lower than those of Black, Latino, and Asian men from the same economic backgrounds.”

NB: “Over the course of their working lives, American college graduates earn more than a million dollars beyond those with only a high-school diploma, and a university diploma is required for many jobs as well as most professions, technical work and positions of influence.”

LEADERSHIP ROLES IN STUDENT GOVERNMENT

1. 59% of student body presidents are women.

2. 74% of student body vice presidents.

FACTORS CONTRIBUTING TO THE DECLINE

1. Rising cost of college — is it worth it? Why go into debt? Why not go to work and make money right away?

2. “Social science researchers cite distractions and obstacles to education that weigh more on boys and young men, including video games, pornography, increased fatherlessness and case of overdiagnosis of boyhood restlessness and related medications.”

3. “We’re uncomfortable as a nation having a discussion that includes white males as part of a group that is having limited success.” (Jerlando Jackson, director and chief research scientist at the Equity and Inclusion Laboratory, University of Wisconsin, see second link)

THE CASE OF UCLA — where race and gender can not be considered

1. “The proportion of male undergraduates at UCLA fell to 41% in the fall 2020 in fall semester of 2020 from 45% in fall 2013.” (first link)

2. “Over the same period, undergraduate enrollment expanded by nearly 3000 students. Of those spots, nine out of ten went to women.”

3. “We do not see male applicants being less competitive than female applicants,” UCLA Vice Provost Youlonda Copeland-Morgan said, but fewer men apply.”

A Generation of American Men Give Up on College: ‘I Just Feel Lost’

Why Men Are the New Minority on College Campuses

A LINK TO THE LAST THREE YEARS OF POSTS ORGANIZED BY THEME:

PDF with headlines — Google Drive

YOUR TURN

Please share the coolest thing you learned in the last week related to justice, freedom, the law or basic values. Or the coolest, most important thing you learned in your life related to justice, freedom, the law, or basic values. Or just some random justice-related fact that blew you away.

This is your chance to make some one’s day. Or to cement in your mind something that you might otherwise forget. Or to think more deeply about something dear to your heart.