Are Male Students in Short Supply, or Is This ‘Crisis’ Exaggerated?

New report says the gender gap in enrollments is largely a matter of race and economic class

The notion that male students are gradually disappearing from college -- which has even prompted calls for a new kind of affirmative action -- does not go down easily in academe.

It seems counterintuitive. After all, the rationale behind traditional

affirmative action and gender preferences is that white men control the rules of the game.

Last week, the skeptics heard a welcome retort in the form of a report by the American Council on Education. Based on a study of the reported decline in male college enrollment, it suggests that the theme of numerous conferences, panels, talks, books, and papers is plain wrong.

Enrollment among men is down, it says, but predominantly among low-income and minority students. And that’s nothing new.

The report, by Jacqueline King, director of the council’s Center for Policy Analysis, calls upon educators and political leaders to “concentrate our time, resources, and attention on the students who are in the greatest danger of being left behind ... and to avoid becoming distracted by ‘crises’ that may have little basis in fact.”

Bold it is -- but the report is unlikely to be the last word on the subject.

One prominent researcher, who was among the first to sound the alarm on male enrollment several years ago, doubts Ms. King’s conclusions and remains convinced that the problem crosses racial, economic, and institutional lines.

“She has badly clouded the issue,” says Thomas G. Mortensen, a senior scholar at the Center for the Study of Opportunity in Higher Education, in Washington.

Like many scholars, Ms. King was initially skeptical that there was a crisis in male enrollment. “On an instinctual level, it just didn’t jibe with my experience,” she says.

The report, the first by the Center for Policy Analysis, examines how race, age, and income level affect gender differences in high-school graduation rates, college-preparation levels, college enrollments, and bachelor’s degrees earned.

In all of those areas, Ms. King found that the song remains the same: Income and race far outweigh gender as determining factors in who enters and graduates from college. That is a theme the council has sounded for years in its annual reports on the status of minority students in higher education.

Rather than “a generalized education crisis among men,” the study found what Ms. King calls “pockets of real problems” among two subgroups: low-income students of all races, and African-American students.

Among undergraduates age 24 or younger in every ethnic group, low-income students, defined as those from families earning less than $30,000, produced higher enrollment percentages of women than men. The largest disparity was among American Indians, with women at 77 percent. Among all ethnic groups except African-Americans, as income increased the gender gap disappeared.

Among African-Americans, the numbers zigzagged across economic lines. At the middle-income level -- $30,000 to $69,999 -- the proportion of women exceeded that of men by only 52 to 48 percent. At upper incomes -- $70,000 or more -- women outpaced men 59 to 41 percent. The greatest disparity was at the lower-income level, where women accounted for 68 percent of college enrollments.

Among white students, the proportion of women exceeded that of men just 51 to 49 percent. But again, the disparity was greatest among low-income students.

The report also notes that men still held the majority slots in doctoral and professional programs and in two of the most remunerative master’s-degree fields, business and engineering.

Ms. King concludes that most previous studies were “simplistic,” because they did not go beyond the overall numbers for men and women. “Looking at men and women from a monolithic perspective is not helpful,” she says.

She suggests that the massacre at Columbine High School, in Littleton, Colo., and the subsequent parental outcry about the culture of young men may have fueled the debate.

The issue is likely to have staying power. A conference on the subject was held last year at Goucher College, and last month two panels on male enrollment were included in the annual meeting of the National Association for College Admission Counseling. Another conference on the subject is planned for this spring at historically black Morehouse College.

Robert J. Massa, vice president for enrollment and student life at Dickinson College, says the gender disparities are “obvious” among all races and income levels there and at the Johns Hopkins University, where he previously worked. Nonetheless, he notes, the disparity between the sexes is mostly clearly pronounced among blacks. Though he disagrees with Ms. King’s conclusions, he says her study is “important in that it brings the conversation to a national level.”

Mr. Mortensen, who started asking “Where are the guys?” in his organization’s newsletter five years ago, clearly doesn’t believe that the issue is a fantasy.

He notes that the statistics for men and women attending college are almost exactly the reverse of what they were 30 years ago. In 1970, 56 percent of the students who earned bachelor’s degrees were men, and 44 percent were women. By 1997, the last year for which data are available, those numbers had flip-flopped. “If it was a problem for women 30 years ago -- and it was -- why isn’t it a problem for men today?” he asks.

He suggests an ideologically driven double standard: “Feminism has dominated the politically correct agenda for the past 30 years. The idea of women as disadvantaged in higher education was once true -- but not for the past 20 years.”

And he challenges Ms. King’s assertion that researchers have not looked beyond gender. He looks at the same statistical trees as Ms. King and finds a far different forest. His research, based on 1999 data compiled by the Education Department, examines bachelor’s degrees from 1977 to 1997, and clearly shows the gains made by women. In 1977, only among black students did women exceed men. “From that time on,” Mr. Mortensen says, “starting with American Indians, on to Hispanics, then whites, then Asians, females have taken over in every ethnic group.”

He does not disagree that income and race are “bigger problems” than gender. But he suggests that several trends, including divorce rates, the increasing number of single mothers, and the disproportionate number of female teachers in elementary schools, contribute to a negative outlook for young men in terms of college enrollment.

“We understand these issues of the past,” he says. “But the gender issue is new.”

Ms. King’s report, “Gender Equity in Higher Education: Are Male Students at a Disadvantage?,” will be mailed to council members next week. Copies may be purchased for $15 each from the American Council on Education, Fulfillment Service, Department 191, Washington 20055.

DISTRIBUTION OF UNDERGRADUATE ENROLLMENT AMONG STUDENTS AGE 24 OR YOUNGER, 1995-96

http://chronicle.com Section: Students Page: A47