48
Where Are All the Boys?
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T
hese days, college lecture halls in the United States are being filled
more and more by female rather than male students. Women now
make up 55 percent of the college population
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and that number
continues to rise. Within ten years, three million more women than men may be
attending US colleges.
Thirty years ago, male students were the majority on college campuses in the
United States. Traditionally, men acted as the
breadwinners of their families,
and college was seen as the path to career advancement and higher salaries. But
during the feminist movements of the 1970s, more women aspired to having
careers and enrolled in college to pursue degrees. By the mid-1980s, more women
than men were attending college. At the same time, there was an unexpected
decline in the number of males applying to college. Educators are still uncertain of
the cause of this decline, but it continues to affect enrollment numbers for men in
higher education. Researchers have suggested a number of theories to account for
males’
seeming decline in interest in seeking college degrees.
According to the National Center for Education Statistics, males leave or are
