Reply to Is the boy:girl ratio at the liberal arts colleges a deterrent at all?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I've read a decent amount about the hostility higher ed has toward male applicants and, honestly, though much of it was overblown.

I've started to change my view.

The fact that 60% of the applicants are female (noted upthread) and that so many SLACs lean heavily female highlights that *something significant* is happening with males. [/quote]

Agreed. For some reason, only some select flagship or technical universities are able to draw equal levels of applicants. It’s not so much the performance issue, I’m fine with more women getting in if they’re more qualified. But colleges and universities are clearly becoming a place men don’t see themselves. And some schools it’s like 75% of the applicants are women.[/quote]

This interpretation doesn't fit with the data though--[b]on average a greater percentage of all men of traditional college age are going to college more than ever. [/b] It's just that an even greater percentage of women also are throwing off the balance.  But something hasn't changed to make men less likely to go--they are still going in record percentages.[/quote]

I am not sure how to reconcile the above with the latest data.  Male college enrollment has been declining since 2012 (if not before).

https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2021/10/08/the-male-college-crisis-is-not-just-in-enrollment-but-completion/#:~:text=Total%20first%2Dtime%20student%20enrollment,%2D0.7%25%2C%20respectively).

Total first-time student enrollment was 13% lower in fall 2020 than in fall 2019. The decline seems to have been driven largely by a drop in total male enrollment, which was over seven times larger than the drop in female enrollment (-5.1% and -0.7%, respectively). Male students now make up a smaller share of all enrolled students in the United States than ever before — just 41% of students enrolled in a postsecondary institution in fall 2020 were men.

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The NY times upshot article on this shares some similarities with the Brookings report, but gives a slightly different angle--men are still more likely to go to college than in the past (if you leave off pandemic and take a longer view), but women are a LOT more likely.  This is looking at the data with a larger view and focusing on the growing gender imbalance and looking from 1970s on, but keeping in mind the shifts in overall college enrollment (and overall college-aged population).  One of the things that the Brookings report points to though that is more recent is the decline in HS completion among males.  That doesn't get tracked in a lot of studies that look at trajectories after HS graduation.  So while DCUM readers might be picturing MC/UMC playing video games or whatever instead of going to college, that data also is pointing to lower income kids who went to work (or sadly jail) rather than finishing HS.
Also, I don't think anyone should look at trends in the same way when there was a global pandemic that seriously disrupted college plans.  I think we need to wait and see how it plays out and look at that data as reflecting separate issues.  I do think the gender imbalance is important to look at, but it should be positioned by not as "men falling behind" from where they were, but rather "men not keeping apace" with the increase in female enrollment.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/09/upshot/college-admissions-men.html
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