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Men are still going to college

Tyler Cowen asks today, "Why are fewer men going to college?" This is a common belief, but it's really a myth. Male enrollment in college has been stable for the past 30 years:

It's true that the number of women enrolling in college has gone up substantially during this period. It's also true that male enrollment is generally lower here than it is overseas (though women outnumber men everywhere).

But it's not true that fewer men are going to college. It's the same as it's ever been.

24 thoughts on “Men are still going to college

  1. lower-case

    we might see a small drop since scotus says colleges aren't supposed to put their DEI thumbs on the scale

    of course that'll only apply to the hoi polloi; failsons like trump will just be waved on in

  2. JRF

    It's true that men get a significant boost in admissions to competitive colleges today compared to women. The case challenging colleges' widespread affirmative action in favor of men hasn't been brought yet—and I have a hard time predicting how it will go.

    But I don't think that affects this graph, which is of total enrollment, much of it in colleges that don't do competitive admissions.

    I would like to see a graph of college *completion*. How have men's and women's rates of that changed over time?

    1. SnowballsChanceinHell

      "The case challenging colleges' widespread affirmative action in favor of men hasn't been brought yet—and I have a hard time predicting how it will go."

      Colleges' widespread affirmative action in favor of men should be struck down. Discrimination based on essential characteristics is odious. Of course, college admission should also be based entirely on standardized testing (and entrance examinations, if necessary).

  3. tango

    C'mon, this one just cries out for a deeper dive into the data. What we see are men as a whole holding about even while women are surging and blowing past the men, and that matters and begs the question of why. Some more detail (which I imagine is available... somewhere).

    - Is this all colleges and universities, selective and not a selective and including , community colleges? And are there differences in gender balance by these criteria?

    - How does this break out by ethnic group? America's population of 18-year-olds was very different ethnically from today's and looking at college rates within each group could direct us towards some whys. For instance, I read somewhere that a lot more Black Women are attending college now than ever before, but not so with Black men.

    - And as always, there is the factor of socio-economic class. Is there some change going on, like more or less of the guys coming from the lowest quartile or something?

    1. SnowballsChanceinHell

      "women are surging and blowing past the men"

      This framing is only true if you believe that the women at the margin are benefiting from going to college. And that the men at the margin are harmed by not going to college.

      But more women take out student loans than men, women take out more in student loans, and women have more difficulty paying off their student loans.

      It could be that women -- who in the aggregate are more conscientious -- are doing what is societally expected of them, to their detriment.

      1. iamr4man

        >> But more women take out student loans than men, women take out more in student loans, and women have more difficulty paying off their student loans <<

        Where does this come from? Please provide a link.

          1. iamr4man

            The person who wrote that didn’t do original research and was not part of a team or researchers. She wrote the article and quoted other sources. The source in the case of the quote in question appears to be this (linked by the author)
            https://www.aauw.org/resources/research/deeper-in-debt/

            The source of the information indicated by the AAUW is not indicated. The AAUW is an advocacy group whose goals appear to align somewhat with mine. But I have no way of knowing where that statistic came from and I found other things indicated on that page to be questionable. For instance it indicates that college education costs rose 103% since 1987 while median household income rose only 14%. Not saying these things aren’t true, just that I find them questionable.

      2. tango

        What a surprising response, @Snowball

        Yes, I make the assumption that going to college net helps an individual. I believe that most studies support that notion. And I do not think that overall, student loans cancel that out on net. The article you attached was interesting, but I do not think it negates the basic principle...

        1. SnowballsChanceinHell

          College is not for everyone. Think of it in economic terms: the average price can exceed the average cost, even when the marginal price is less than the marginal cost.

          So too can the average benefit of college exceed the average cost of college, even when (at the margin) there are people for whom the benefits of college are exceeded by the costs of college.

  4. Justin

    My employer has hired a bunch of 20 something engineers (whom I must babysit) and they are about half men and women. Mostly white. With a few Asian, Indian, and blacks. Diversity! I’m their trainer.

  5. chuchundra

    As the percentage of decent jobs that require a college degree increases, the percentage of men receiving those degrees has remained stagnant while the percentage of women degrees has outpaced men and continues to increase.

  6. samgamgee

    It would be interesting to see a trend chart for the types of degrees women were attaining over time. I expect the types for men have remained pretty steady since there were minimal societal limitations, but am guessing we would see a pretty significant change for women as they expand their options.

  7. cmayo

    Tyler Cowen is just providing cover for patriarchy/misogyny/conservafuck men who prefer to consider themselves moderate and sensible - when he says "Why are fewer men going to college?", what he means is "Why are more women getting uppity and going to college more often than men, and therefore inspiring fear of loss of power among men?"

    This isn't hard to understand when you see it as the political messaging that it is.

  8. pjcamp1905

    I think you know that you should present this per capita. Population growth means that it actually has gone down for men.

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