Matriarchal Blessing
“Nearly 60 percent of all college students today are women. That’s an all-time high… U.S. colleges and universities have lost about 1.5 million students in the past several years. Men accounted for 71 percent of that loss.”
This is a quote from a Freakanomics podcast episode I listened to this week called “What is the future of college—and does it have room for men?”
Scholars, journalists, college presidents and reddit thread philosophers have all come to the table to add their particular offering to the buffet of reasons why fewer boys are going to college.
The Pew Research Center has found that boys are more likely to think they don’t need a degree for the jobs they want, and when they do enroll in college, work opportunities lure them away.
Ruth Simmons, president of A&M University thinks “the problem is the way we treat our boys in k-12. They turn away from school because of the negative messages they get at school… Behavior that is rewarded for boys doesn’t fit well with good student behavior.”
