Pack it up, guys. The takeover is complete.
In a remarkable example of the feminization of higher education, last year women earned more degrees at every level on the University of Minnesota's Twin Cities campus than men did.
Last year was the first in which most of the newly minted Ph.Ds on campus were women. But for at least a decade women have earned more bachelor's degrees and master's degrees at the university than men. For six years women have earned more first professional degrees in such fields as pharmacy and veterinary medicine.
Female students are in the majority in 14 of the university's 19 colleges. Architecture, technology, business, natural resources and law continue to be mostly male territory. But women are the majority in biological sciences, public health, medicine, education, liberal arts and even in the school that once graduated mostly farmers.
"The women just keep marching on, and the guys are stuck where they were 30 years ago," said Tom Mortenson, a higher education policy analyst who tracks shifts in enrollment and access. "Women have moved so far past men it's staggering."
Mortenson celebrates women's achievements but believes sagging college completion rates among men are a societal time bomb. Young men who think they can earn a good living without a degree are for the most part fooling themselves, he said.
"The kinds of jobs that were there for their fathers and grandfathers will not be there," Mortenson said. "They need to figure out how to be health-care workers and teachers. Being a video game tester may be fun, but it is not a viable career."
It is unusual for women to get more Ph.Ds than men at a research institution like the Twin Cities campus. The difference last year was slight: 301 women earned doctorates, compared to 291 men, a slight enough majority that it may not hold this year. But the trend is clear: A decade ago, women earned only 38 percent of the doctorates on campus.
Women are flooding higher education around the country. In 2001-02, women got most of the Ph.Ds in Florida, Mississippi, Tennessee and Vermont. In every state, women earned most of the associate degrees and bachelor's degrees. And only Utah had more men earning master's degrees.
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