Colleges and universities these days are seeing a surge in enrollment — and it's increasingly driven by young women, according to U.S. Census data out today.Not only are more women enrolling in college, far more are completing than their male counterparts.
The numbers confirm years of enrollment data showing that women have not only closed the college enrollment gap — they have far surpassed men on campuses. For every four men enrolled in graduate school in 2006, there were nearly six women.
The numbers are disturbing to Leonard Sax, a Maryland psychologist, family physician and author of Boys Adrift:The Five Factors Driving the Growing Epidemic of Unmotivated Boys and Underachieving Young Men. He says the data present a picture of "more and more young men who don't seem to have the drive that their sisters have."...
Women in 2006 made up 56% of undergrads, up from 54.8% in 2000.
Sax says the enrollment numbers actually underplay the extent of the problem — and recent U.S. Education Department diploma data agree: Women last spring earned an estimated 58.5% of bachelor's degrees, up from 57.2% in 2000. They're expected to earn 60% of bachelor's degrees by 2012....
"We now have second-grade boys who will tell you they hate school," he says. After that, he says, they hit barriers that block the path to college: higher rates of doctor-prescribed attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder drugs, the lure of shoot-'em-up video games and a culture that, for many urban and minority boys, doesn't value education. "Doing well in school and caring about your grades has come to be seen as unmasculine," Sax says.
How long can this kind of a trend continue. From my experience, educated women are not particularly likely to want to date, let alone marrry men who lack a formal education. Among some segments of society, this is even more true than the general population. How will this effect us socially and economically. Furthermore, what can be done to arrest the slide?
1 comment:
You're confusing the highest levels of college education with the average level. Remember, most secretaries these days have college degrees. I very much doubt they'll object to marrying a general contractor or a plumber, both of whom make more than teachers.
Look at all mediocre state schools. They are predominantly female. That's where the extra women students are going. They aren't becoming lawyers and doctors, but secretaries and kindergarten teachers.
The gap, btw, has existed for nearly 20 years.
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