How colleges turned pink

There's a bigger gender gap today than when Title IX was passed, but the other way round: Why?

Women attending the University of Michigan, 1871.

There’s a good chance you know by now that colleges in the U.S. skew female. One of the ways I draw attention to this trend is by pointing out that the gender imbalance today in college degree awards is a little wider today than it was in 1972, when Title IX was passed to promote women’s educational opportunities:

Over the last year or so, I’ve had the chance to visit dozens of colleges and universities. The gender gap is an issue that is very much on the minds of administrators and admissions officers, even if they very often are not sure what to do about it. It should be on their agenda, too, given that there are now 2.4 million more female than male undergraduates on U.S. campuses (8.9 million women compared to 6.5 million men).

Understanding why men are so much less likely to enroll in and complete college is a serious and urgent undertaking. That is why this is a big strategic priority for AIBM, and why we have just published a fact-filled research brief on the topic, “Degrees of Difference: Male College Enrollment and Completion”.

Men not enrolling

A big part of the story is that men have become much less likely to enroll at four-year colleges than women, as this chart adapted from our research brief shows:

What’s going on here?

• For one thing, fewer men appear to be leaving high school ready for higher education. There’s a big gender gap in terms of GPA, for example, as well in on-time high school graduation rates.

• Young men may see more attractive immediate alternatives in the workplace.

• They are much less likely to have enjoyed school, and so be less inclined to voluntarily sign up for more time in the classroom.

These are all good reasons why there need to be more alternatives to traditional college routes, including apprenticeships, as Will Secker and I have argued here before.

But that doesn’t mean giving up on helping more men to and through college; while we are unlikely to return to a 50:50 gender ratio in higher education, the current gaps can surely be narrowed somewhat.

So let’s start at the beginning. As our brief shows, young men are less likely to go straight from high school to college:

It is striking that the share of men enrolled in college the Fall after high school is the same today as it was in 1964.

A delay before college may be no bad thing, of course. Many students benefit from a gap year between school and college, perhaps especially young men. My own son made the wise decision in 2020 to work rather than experience a sub-optimal college freshman year. 2020 was the pandemic year, of course. Diane Schanzenbach and Sarah Turner show that most of the drop in male enrollment was caused by the shuttering of most “hands on” courses in community colleges, like welding or automotive repair.

Is college for me? (Asking for a male friend)

One concern among many higher education leaders is that college is increasingly seen as a less comfortable space for men. In part this could reflect lower levels of college-readiness, of course. But it could go deeper.

It could be that the very idea of educational excellence is being coded more female. All through K-12, boys see the girls doing better. They also see that most teachers are female: the male share has fallen from 33% in 1980 to 23% today, as an earlier AIBM brief, “Missing Misters” highlights. They are likely to encounter strong positive messages associating girls with educational competence and success: Girls Who Code, The Future is Female, She can STEM, Black Girl Magic, and so on. These are wonderful messages of course. But they may create the sense that the whole education business is more for the girls.

On a number of campuses I have visited, regular surveys are conducted among students to gauge welfare. Some leaders have told me that male students are much less likely to say they feel they “belong” on campus; and a sense of belonging really matters for student success. In their ongoing efforts to promote women, these institutions have to be careful not to inadvertently send a message that men are less welcome on campus than men.

There could also be a sense among some young men that college is not for them in part for political reasons, especially as a political gap opens up between them and young women (see my previous post on this, “We must pay more attention to young men”). The latest Gallup/Lumina State of Higher Education survey contained a fascinating nugget: men were much more likely to say that the ending of race-based affirmative action would influence their decision over whether and where to go to college. Here’s the relevant chart from that report:

This surprised me, and it surprised the authors too. As they write:

Curiously, men are nearly twice as likely as women to say the Court’s ruling will impact their decision to pursue a degree (56% vs. 30%), even though the ruling has no bearing on the consideration of gender in the admissions process. Moreover, some colleges report adopting affirmative action policies in favor of men as a means of combatting an increasing gender skew toward women on campus.

My theory is that male respondents to the survey saw affirmative action as a signal of a strongly left-leaning ethos, likely to go hand in hand with liberal feminism, which is off-putting to at least some men. That could be totally wrong. But it makes me want to know more about the evolving attitudes of young men towards college in general.

A longer road to graduation

Even when they do get to college, men are much less likely than women to complete their degree, and especially to do so quickly. Among those enrolling at a four-year college, male students are seven percentage points less likely to complete within six years (the standard “on time” metric), and eleven percentage points less likely to do so within four years (43% v. 54%).

As this chart from our brief shows, these gaps are similar at public and private nonprofit colleges, while at for-profit colleges the graduation rates are terrible for both men and women:

Men missing from HEAL classrooms

The decline in the share of men in college is exacerbated by the growing gender gaps in HEAL courses (health, education, administration and literacy; though heads-up, I’m increasingly thinking the “A” might better stand for Arts. . .) While more women are enrolling for STEM classes, fewer men are enrolling for HEAL ones. The fastest growth on college campuses in terms of degrees has been in health-related courses, where women account for 84% of Associate’s Degrees and 88% of Bachelor’s degrees.

As Goldie Blumenstyk writes for the Chronicle of Higher Education, there is a growing problem of “missing men” on college campuses in general and HEAL subjects in particular. In another earlier AIBM brief we showed the lack of representation of men in key mental health professions, and this is likely to worsen given that the pipeline is skewing more and more female.

The share of advanced degrees in psychology and social work going to men has declined, for example:

Some colleges are starting to act, both on the broader issue and on the HEAL-specific challenge. At Western Kentucky University, for example, there is a Young Male Leadership Academy which provides outreach, scholarships and mentorship to encourage high-school boys to consider careers in teaching. The school is hoping to expand the program to include psychology too if they can secure funding.

As I say, this is going to be a big issue for us at AIBM and we are in the process of establishing a network focused on male achievement in higher education. Do check out our whole brief; we really are the only ones producing this kind of work right now. And if you are interested in the network do get in touch with us using comms@aibm.org or by pinging me here, and of course by signing up for AIBM’s monthly newsletter.

When the facts change. . .

It was not very long ago that colleges were seen as places for men. Women have fought hard to get access, and are now dominating campuses in a way that men did just a generation ago. It is a remarkable and largely wonderful story.

But we now need to recalibrate our mindset and policies to ensure that colleges attract and serve men equally well too. It’s hard to update our views when trends reverse this quickly. But it’s past time to do so.