I honestly didn’t realize that American men have turned away from college in droves. Does this surprise you like it did me?
The September 7th front page of the Wall Street Journal featured an article built around analytics of US college attendance by sex, race and income level.
Without commentary or editorialization, here’s the visualization. After, I’ll follow with a couple callouts that struck me.
First, please note that I’ve never argued that going to college is the only path through life.
If you’ve seen the obsessive lighting in our back garden, you could probably guess that my non-higher-ed work choice would have been as an electrician. I imagine I could have made a living at it and gone home at the end of the day satisfied with a good job well done.
Without judgment and without (much of) a politically correct filter, here are some of my callouts:
Almost 50% More US Women Attended College in 2020-21 Than Men: And the article also notes that after six years of college, 65% of women received diplomas compared with only 59% of men. In other words, more women are starting college and more of those are graduating. As a result, “in the next few years, two women will earn a degree for every man, if the trend continues.”
The Studious Asian Stereotype Still Holds: Of course, every Asian doesn’t go to college. But in aggregate, 72% to 90% at each income level do go for higher education. And Asians are the only group with little disparity between men and women.
Enrollment for White Men is Often Lower Than Black and Latino Men: The differences appear to be small, but it certainly runs counter to my own original perception.
Wrapping up, what will the future impacts be when nearly 50% more women attend college than men?
Will this help overcome the longstanding income inequality between men and women? (a recent US Dept of Commerce analysis reported women overall earned 79 cents for every dollar a man makes … 86 cents in STEM careers)
Here is the deep link to the WSJ article: https://www.wsj.com/articles/college-university-fall-higher-education-men-women-enrollment-admissions-back-to-school-11630948233?st=t2vc3xzkds96wtx&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink