Women Increase Their Lead Over Men in Bevy of Undergraduate Statistics, Report Says
Female students have gone from being a minority to a majority of undergraduate enrollments in the United States over the last generation, and have increased their preparedness for college work and their graduation rates, in many cases besting their male counterparts, according to a report released on Friday by the National Center for Education Statistics.
The report, which draws on data from government agencies and several continuing studies of high-school and college students, also says that the trends are more apparent among some racial and socioeconomic groups than others. For example, while women made up 56 percent of all undergraduates in 2001 (up from 42 percent in 1970), women accounted for 63 percent of black students, 62 percent of students over the age of 39, and 70 percent of single-parent students.
In terms of academic preparedness, the report says, the number of women who took high-school courses of a high "academic intensity" lagged behind men as recently as the 1980s. By the 1990s the gap had closed.
That degree of preparedness paid off. Until the early 1990s a higher proportion of men than women in their late 20s possessed bachelor's degrees. Around 1991 or 1992, however, more women than men held degrees in that age group, and the gender gap has only widened since then. In 2003 women led men, 31 percent to 26 percent, in this category.
The full text of the report, "Gender Differences in Participation and Completion of Undergraduate Education and How They Have Changed Over Time," is available at the center's Web site <http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2005169>.