The new gender gap in college

Are too few males entering and completing college these days? That rhetorical question is being posed more and more now, in academia, and in the media.

The evidence I have seen suggests that we are, indeed, experiencing a new and growing ?gender gap? between female and male students in higher education.

In America today, nearly 60 percent of our college students are female.? Moreover, females now earn about 200,000 more bachelor?s degrees than do their male counterparts.

On some college campuses, the gender gap is even greater.?At Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pa., the Class of 2004 was 64 percent female. At Husson College in Bangor, Maine, the Class of 2007 came in at 65 percent female. And at Medgar Evers College in Brooklyn, N.Y., the girl-boy ratio is 80-20.?While these statistics might delight some male students who are more interested in dating than debating, they do raise serious questions about male-female differences in academic achievement.

This new and growing gender gap is also reflected in the latest demographic data from our own Motlow State Community College. Of the 3,540 students enrolled, 2237 are female, and just 1,303 are male.

My own classes in recent years exemplify the trend as well.?For example, in my three public speaking classes this spring, females outnumber males nearly 2-1 in one class, 3-1 in another, and incredibly, 8-1 in still another.?Only in my political science class is the female-male ratio roughly equal.

Several years ago, the gender gap in college favored males.?As I recall, school systems across the country went to great lengths to close or narrow the gender gap between boys and girls.?Apparently, their efforts paid off.?Young women, and some not so young, are entering and completing college in unprecedented numbers all across the country.?Clearly, that is a good thing ? for women and for the nation which sorely needs their new credentials and potential.

That said, questions remain about what should be done about lagging male attendance and academic performance in college.?In my view, the last thing we need to is create another ?victim? category for boys and young men. Nor do we need frivolous fixes, like more male photos in college admissions literature.

Instead, we need a comprehensive analysis of why boys and young men are lagging so far behind their female peers in college. I suspect the real answers to this troubling trend lie beyond and before what happens in college.

We know, for example, that boys tend to have more academic problems growing up than do girls. They are more likely to repeat grades, more likely to have learning disabilities, and more likely to drop out of school than are girls.?

My own experience, first as a student, then as a teacher, confirms what research has also shown.?Boys tend to be less prepared, less motivated, more easily distracted, and much more reluctant than girls to seek help when they need it.

Maybe what boys really need, way before college, is a little more attention, a little more direction, and even a little more discipline, at school, and at home.

Thomas B. Vaughn is a professor at Motlow College and co-host of the WCPI radio show ?Viewpoints,? which airs on 91.3 FM.