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PHOTO: GETTY IMAGES (TEEN LEANING ON BLACKBOARD)
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Fixing the gender gap
By RICHARD WHITMIRE The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights recently announced that it is investigating whether America’s colleges discriminate against women by admitting less-qualified men. It might strike many as odd to think that American men would need such a leg up in a seemingly male-dominated society. And yet, when looking to America’s future—trying to spot the future entrepreneurs and inventors—there’s reason to be troubled by the flagging academic performance among men. Nearly 58% of all those earning bachelor’s degrees are women. Graduate programs are headed in the same direction, and the gender gaps at community colleges—where 62% of those earning two-year degrees are female—are even wider. Economists at both the Department of Education and the College Board agree that, to ensure high future earnings, men and women have an equal need for college degrees, and yet only women are getting that message. The numbers are startling. Last summer, the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University published the results of a study tracking the students who graduated from Boston Public Schools in 2007. Their conclusion: For every 167 females in four-year colleges, there were 100 males. In theory, the surge in the number of educated women should make up for male shortcomings when we’re looking at the overall prospects for the economy. But men and women aren’t the same. At the same levels of education, women remain less inclined to roll the dice on risky business start-ups or to grind out careers in isolated tech labs. Revenue generated by woman-owned businesses is less than 5% of all revenue. And while more women are taking on economically important majors, women still earn only a fifth of the bachelor’s degrees granted in physics, computer science and engineering. Why males don’t seem to “get” the importance of a college education is a mystery. Too many boys arrive at their senior year of high school lacking both the skills and aspirations that would get them into, and through, college. At a typical state university, a gender gap of 10 percentage points in the freshman class grows by five points by graduation day, as more men than women drop out. All this explains why colleges have been favoring men in admissions. There just aren’t enough highly qualified men to go around. Higher acceptance rates for men show that colleges dig deeper into their applicant pool to find them. The final proof: Freshman class profiles reveal that the women, with their far higher high-school GPAs, are more academically qualified than the men. Interviews with admissions officers reveal that the girls’ essays sparkle compared with boys’, and girls far outshine boys in extracurricular activities. Banning admissions preferences for men would be problematic. Most of those male prefereneces are granted by private colleges, which consider themselves on solid legal ground. But in truth, gender preferences are a sideshow. The real issue is the flagging academic interest among boys. It’s a new issue to most Americans but hotly debated in countries such as England. So far, nobody has solved the boy mystery, but some countries are years ahead of the U.S. Australia, for example, has had some success with literacy-boosting programs for young boys. Until the code gets cracked, there’s a national economic interest in keeping those preferences in place—just for a few more years. Mr. Whitmire is the author of the forthcoming book “Why Boys Fail.” What’s your opinion? Write to letters.classroom@wsj.com. What’s your opinion? Write to letters.classroom@wsj.com.
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