Where the Men Are

For nearly 40 years, women have outnumbered men on U.S. campuses. It is a resilient trend that includes some extreme examples: The undergraduate student body at Mount Saint Mary College in New York was 70 percent female, as of the fall of 2017. The same was true for Northwestern State University, in Louisiana, and Rhode Island College. Meanwhile, at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, women have made up three-fifths of the undergraduate population for more than 30 years.

Such statistics have understandably drawn attention to the men who are missing from college campuses, but they might also raise a logical question: Just where are the men?

The Chronicle analyzed undergraduate enrollment data from more than 1,700 four-year colleges to find out which institutions had undergraduate male enrollment of 50 percent or more.

Some of the colleges with overwhelmingly male student bodies aren’t surprising at all — think military academies and colleges (The Citadel and the United States Air Force Academy), institutions that specialize in male-dominated STEM fields (Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University and Michigan Technological University), and, of course, those that admit men only (Hampden-Sydney and Morehouse Colleges). But beyond that, The Chronicle’s analysis shows:

• Nearly 380 institutions had male undergraduate enrollment greater than 50 percent, with the largest share of those designated as small colleges, such as Ferrum College, Dakota State University, and the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art.
• Three types of specialty colleges — engineering, technology-related schools, and faith-related institutions — were leaders in enrolling an overwhelmingly male share of students at 88, 78, and 59 percent, respectively.
• North Dakota is the state with the largest share of male college students, at 50.6 percent. Wyoming isn't far behind, with the men constituting an even 50 percent of undergraduates.