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

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Having seen some of the college catalogues recently I'm not convinced these boys are making the wrong decision.

Riiiiight. But you and hack personalities like Ben Sharpiro and Tucker Carlson won't be volunteering your own sons and daughters to skip college, of course. Tucker's kids all went to elite boarding schools then UVA. But he gets on Fox and rails against higher ed to his 5 million fans.

THIS.

How do so many people fall for this head-fake? All the Trump kids went to Ivy League schools. This true of pretty much every elite in the Republican Party.

College is terrible.....except every rich Republican I know will move heaven & earth to get their kid into Stanford, Harvard, Yale, or Penn. (MIT is way too hard for their kids)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"College." What about specific majors? Men are still overrepresented in the hard stuff, girls in the fluff stuff "studies" etc. That's what "college"
has become today. Relax, men do just fine.

+1 seriously. Do they need a cookie and a hug?

-mom of DD and DS who is doing just fine.

Maybe your DS is ok but not every other young man is "doing just fine." Google deaths of despair in Appalachia or just look at what's happening right here in DC.

+1 "My kid is fine," therefore there is not problem? There fore everyone else must be doing something wrong? Yikes.

No, not everyone is doing fine, but it's not like they don't have any opportunities. They just choose not to take them. What happened to personal responsibility?

In any case, 1/3 of working age men aren't in the workforce for various reasons: homeless, working under the table; trading bitcoin; retired early. They made their choices. Yes, it is a choice. You may not like the choices, but you do have choices.

It's a lot easier for white men to get a job than black men, that's for sure.

Because white men are also more likely to have some college.

I find it interesting how people ignore and keep ignoring that one major reason for this disparity is black men. This was talked about for a few pages earlier in the thread. We do have a problem with poorer black men not getting established enough in life.

Try college after 13 years in an inner city public school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:ok, I have 3 daughters and the reason boys fail at American schools has been very clear to me - because curricula are dumbed down and academic competition is suppressed. Classes are taught by overwhelmingly female teachers who know very little and prioritize discipline and busywork.

We are immigrants but moved back to our old country mainly because schools are much better. And boy, do boys thrive here. They are so much better academically (about equal with girls) and more confident. Society needs both men and women, and men and women need each other.

Teachers have been overwhelmingly female in the US for more than a century.

I do agree the curriculum has been dumbed down, but I don't see that as a reason boys in particular are generally less successful or less prepared.

because they can't handle boredom as well as girls can.

pretty sure 100 years ago, school was boring, too, yet more boys went to college than girls. Oh, that's right, back then it wasn't really accepted for girls to be educated, whereas today, it is.

This is what is so weird about "the feminizing of school hurts boys" argument. School used to be much more rigid, strict, focused on rote memorization, etc. I would think by modern standards, children of both genders would find it far more boring. And teaching in primary school has long been female - I think it went from about 2/3 in the 80's to about 70-75% in the last decade (hardly a huge leap). The difference is not that school is more strict/boring/female now but that barriers (some explicit) have come down for girls, and with more competition comes predictable results.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Having seen some of the college catalogues recently I'm not convinced these boys are making the wrong decision.

Riiiiight. [b]But you and hack personalities like Ben Sharpiro and Tucker Carlson won't be volunteering your own sons and daughters to skip college, of course. Tucker's kids all went to elite boarding schools then UVA. But he gets on Fox and rails against higher ed to his 5 million fans.

THIS.[/b]

How do so many people fall for this head-fake? All the Trump kids went to Ivy League schools. This true of pretty much every elite in the Republican Party.

College is terrible.....except every rich Republican I know will move heaven & earth to get their kid into Stanford, Harvard, Yale, or Penn. (MIT is way too hard for their kids)

You make a good point. My kid is in college. But that's because they wanted to be. I wouldn't have cared if they did something else.
I can't speak for Ben Shapiro, Tucker Carlson, or Trump.

[Anonymous]

It looks like Nursing and Education are subjects dominated by women students. And both are very important. But men just don't want to do those jobs. Engineering, Physics, Math, Computer Science on the other hand -- hard subjects, dominated by male students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It looks like Nursing and Education are subjects dominated by women students. And both are very important. But men just don't want to do those jobs. Engineering, Physics, Math, Computer Science on the other hand -- hard subjects, dominated by male students.

Except, even in the "hard subjects" dominated by men, there really are not enough men taking the courses. The guys are simply not showing up in relation to their population numbers.

Number of women enrolled in nursing + biology: ~170K

Number of men enrolled in EE, ME, Math, CompSci + Biology: ~120K

Plus there's probably around 20-25K women in the "hard subjects" you listed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Having seen some of the college catalogues recently I'm not convinced these boys are making the wrong decision.

Riiiiight. But you and hack personalities like Ben Sharpiro and Tucker Carlson won't be volunteering your own sons and daughters to skip college, of course. Tucker's kids all went to elite boarding schools then UVA. But he gets on Fox and rails against higher ed to his 5 million fans.

THIS.

How do so many people fall for this head-fake? All the Trump kids went to Ivy League schools. This true of pretty much every elite in the Republican Party.

College is terrible.....except every rich Republican I know will move heaven & earth to get their kid into Stanford, Harvard, Yale, or Penn. (MIT is way too hard for their kids)

Don't forget Trump's EPA hack Scott Pruitt getting his bimbo Big 12 sorority daughter a WH internship and then into UVA Law.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/15/us/politics/scott-pruitt-epa-aides.html

https://abovethelaw.com/2018/03/epa-chief-scott-pruitts-daughter-is-a-first-year-student-at-an-elite-law-school/

[Anonymous]

The co-op model of college where students take college classes while also having different full-time corporate internships year round seems to be a much better model for modern boys (and probably many modern girls) with engagement issues. Kids also earn really great money if they're studying something like engineering, thus minimizing debt loads. But very few universities offer co-op.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:ok, I have 3 daughters and the reason boys fail at American schools has been very clear to me - because curricula are dumbed down and academic competition is suppressed. Classes are taught by overwhelmingly female teachers who know very little and prioritize discipline and busywork.

We are immigrants but moved back to our old country mainly because schools are much better. And boy, do boys thrive here. They are so much better academically (about equal with girls) and more confident. Society needs both men and women, and men and women need each other.

Teachers have been overwhelmingly female in the US for more than a century.

I do agree the curriculum has been dumbed down, but I don't see that as a reason boys in particular are generally less successful or less prepared.

because they can't handle boredom as well as girls can.

pretty sure 100 years ago, school was boring, too, yet more boys went to college than girls. Oh, that's right, back then it wasn't really accepted for girls to be educated, whereas today, it is.

This is what is so weird about "the feminizing of school hurts boys" argument. School used to be much more rigid, strict, focused on rote memorization, etc. I would think by modern standards, children of both genders would find it far more boring. And teaching in primary school has long been female - I think it went from about 2/3 in the 80's to about 70-75% in the last decade (hardly a huge leap). The difference is not that school is more strict/boring/female now but that barriers (some explicit) have come down for girls, and with more competition comes predictable results.

rote memorization is not boring, it's challenging. just like being spanked in school is not boring. what is boring right now is the easiness and repetitiveness of it all. when you are scared, you are not bored.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:ok, I have 3 daughters and the reason boys fail at American schools has been very clear to me - because curricula are dumbed down and academic competition is suppressed. Classes are taught by overwhelmingly female teachers who know very little and prioritize discipline and busywork.

We are immigrants but moved back to our old country mainly because schools are much better. And boy, do boys thrive here. They are so much better academically (about equal with girls) and more confident. Society needs both men and women, and men and women need each other.

Teachers have been overwhelmingly female in the US for more than a century.

I do agree the curriculum has been dumbed down, but I don't see that as a reason boys in particular are generally less successful or less prepared.

because they can't handle boredom as well as girls can.

pretty sure 100 years ago, school was boring, too, yet more boys went to college than girls. Oh, that's right, back then it wasn't really accepted for girls to be educated, whereas today, it is.

This is what is so weird about "the feminizing of school hurts boys" argument. School used to be much more rigid, strict, focused on rote memorization, etc. I would think by modern standards, children of both genders would find it far more boring. And teaching in primary school has long been female - I think it went from about 2/3 in the 80's to about 70-75% in the last decade (hardly a huge leap). The difference is not that school is more strict/boring/female now but that barriers (some explicit) have come down for girls, and with more competition comes predictable results.

rote memorization is not boring, it's challenging. just like being spanked in school is not boring. what is boring right now is the easiness and repetitiveness of it all. when you are scared, you are not bored.

So let's traumatize male children so they do better in school? WTF

This is how you end up with psychopaths in government and companies.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It looks like Nursing and Education are subjects dominated by women students. And both are very important. But men just don't want to do those jobs. Engineering, Physics, Math, Computer Science on the other hand -- hard subjects, dominated by male students.

Except, even in the "hard subjects" dominated by men, there really are not enough men taking the courses. The guys are simply not showing up in relation to their population numbers.

Number of women enrolled in nursing + biology: ~170K

Number of men enrolled in EE, ME, Math, CompSci + Biology: ~120K

Plus there's probably around 20-25K women in the "hard subjects" you listed.

That 170 figure is mostly nursing. Teaching and nursing are two relatively underpaid “pink collar” jobs that men have never pursued in large numbers. It’s not making the point you think it is.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Try college after 13 years in an inner city public school.

It's fascinating how smug people are about inner-city high schools being awful. Please look up the high schools in middle class flyover country suburbs. They're negligibly better, pumping out 12th graders who can't read, write or do math above 8th or 9th grade levels — nowhere near college ready baselines. Just looking at the middle class suburbs around where I grew up, less than 33% of the graduating seniors are college ready.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:ok, I have 3 daughters and the reason boys fail at American schools has been very clear to me - because curricula are dumbed down and academic competition is suppressed. Classes are taught by overwhelmingly female teachers who know very little and prioritize discipline and busywork.

We are immigrants but moved back to our old country mainly because schools are much better. And boy, do boys thrive here. They are so much better academically (about equal with girls) and more confident. Society needs both men and women, and men and women need each other.

Teachers have been overwhelmingly female in the US for more than a century.

I do agree the curriculum has been dumbed down, but I don't see that as a reason boys in particular are generally less successful or less prepared.

because they can't handle boredom as well as girls can.

pretty sure 100 years ago, school was boring, too, yet more boys went to college than girls. Oh, that's right, back then it wasn't really accepted for girls to be educated, whereas today, it is.

This is what is so weird about "the feminizing of school hurts boys" argument. School used to be much more rigid, strict, focused on rote memorization, etc. I would think by modern standards, children of both genders would find it far more boring. And teaching in primary school has long been female - I think it went from about 2/3 in the 80's to about 70-75% in the last decade (hardly a huge leap). The difference is not that school is more strict/boring/female now but that barriers (some explicit) have come down for girls, and with more competition comes predictable results.

rote memorization is not boring, it's challenging. just like being spanked in school is not boring. what is boring right now is the easiness and repetitiveness of it all. when you are scared, you are not bored.

So let's traumatize male children so they do better in school? WTF

This is how you end up with psychopaths in government and companies.

So we need to bring back spanking in school to ensure boys' achievement? I think this debate now has finally hit rock bottom.

Also, having been educated outside of the U.S. for several years in a system utilizing much more rote memorization, I will say it has its benefits, but "holding your interest" is not one of them!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It looks like Nursing and Education are subjects dominated by women students. And both are very important. But men just don't want to do those jobs. Engineering, Physics, Math, Computer Science on the other hand -- hard subjects, dominated by male students.

Except, even in the "hard subjects" dominated by men, there really are not enough men taking the courses. The guys are simply not showing up in relation to their population numbers.

Number of women enrolled in nursing + biology: ~170K

Number of men enrolled in EE, ME, Math, CompSci + Biology: ~120K

Plus there's probably around 20-25K women in the "hard subjects" you listed.

That 170 figure is mostly nursing. Teaching and nursing are two relatively underpaid “pink collar” jobs that men have never pursued in large numbers. It’s not making the point you think it is.

Oh, the "pink collar" six figure jobs?

The point I'm making are that the boys are not even bothering to show up. Sure, the boys may "dominate" STEM and engineering but they are doing so in significantly smaller aggregate numbers than the raw number of women going to college and earning marketable degrees with skills.

In short, out of 10 boys only 2 are getting a "tough degree" while the other 8 are living with their parents and earning minimum wage (if they are even working). These slackers are not getting absorbed by the trades.

[Anonymous]

I can only speak to my Big 10 alma mater but the college of engineering graduation we attended appeared to be like literally 90% Indian and Asian kids, both foreign and domestic born. In a state that's over 90% white and black.