Doctors 24,728 20,176 44, % 44.9% First-Prof 42,862 36,845 79, % 46.2%

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1 Earned Degrees Conferred by Gender 1870 to 2001 The growing gender imbalance in higher education is most apparent at college graduation. Throughout the education pipeline girls and young women are consistently and persistently outperforming boys and young men. While these performance differences appear to be small at each stage in the education pipeline, their cumulative effect is most dramatically on display at college graduation. In there were 531,840 bachelor's degrees awarded to men by American colleges and universities. At the same time women earned 712,331 bachelor's degrees. Men earned 42.7 percent of the total and women earned 57.3 percent. Similar results occurred at the associate's and master's degree levels. Every year 105 male babies are born for every 100 girl babies. This is a demographic constant in the United States. Males remain a majority of the U.S. population up to the mid 20s. After that women make up a larger share of the population. In the traditional undergraduate college years males are roughly 51 percent of the population. Thus when males earn 42.7 percent of the bachelor's degrees from college they are underrepresented by a little more than eight percentage points, and women are over represented by the same amount. The story told by data presented here is one that continues to evolve gradually, year after year, as it has for more than 130 years in the United States. It can and should also be told as a record of the educational progress of girls and women in America. Indeed, it is a story occurring in most of the world: women are advancing well beyond men in education nearly everywhere that the ambitions of women are not culturally suppressed. Because OPPORTUNITY focuses on populations that are underrepresented in higher education, this analysis focuses on males. In a world demanding ever higher levels of education and training, men are falling behind the needs of the labor force as well as the achievements of women. As a direct result men are losing their historic economic, civic and family roles. More males are dropping out of the traditional social roles they have played as workers, breadwinners and voters. Instead males are increasingly in prison, committing suicide, abandoning the children they father, dropping out of the labor force and failing to even vote in elections. Americans tend to believe market forces can correct any imbalance in society. But the plight of males does not appear to be amenable to a market solution. Increasingly we understand that males are wired differently from birth. Thus we should not be surprised that the current educational offerings that serve girls and women so well do not achieve similar success for boys and men. Here we update our previously reported data on earned college degrees by gender with data for This update is based on data recently reported by the National Center for Education Statistics. The report may be downloaded from the NCES Website at: Earned Degrees Conferred For the year American colleges and universities awarded the following degrees to men and women: Level Males Females Total Associate 231, , , % 60.0% Bachelors 531, ,331 1,244, % 57.3% Master 194, , , % 58.5% Postsecondary Education OPPORTUNITY 1

2 Doctors 24,728 20,176 44, % 44.9% First-Prof 42,862 36,845 79, % 46.2% States. The gender distribution of college degrees tends to hold across all states: A majority of associate's degrees were awarded to females in 2001 in every state except Arizona. The share of associate's degrees awarded to men ranged from 31.0 percent in Arkansas to 51.6 percent in Arizona. A majority of the bachelor's degrees were awarded to women in all states in The share of these degrees earned by men ranged from 37.4 percent in Delaware to 48.5 percent in Utah. A majority of the master's degrees were awarded to women in every state except Utah. In 2001 the share of master's degrees awarded to men ranged from 31.0 percent in Maine to 55.4 percent in Utah. A majority of the doctorates were earned by males in 43 states, and a majority by females eight states. The range in the share of doctorates earned by men was from 37.0 percent in Alaska to 69.6 percent in Montana. Race/ethnicity. The general pattern of most bachelor's degrees going to women holds for every racial/ethnic group of the population. However, the pattern varies considerably across groups. For 2001: White non-hispanic. Males earn 40.3 percent of associates degrees, 43.2 percent of bachelors degrees, 38.8 percent of masters degrees, 50.5 percent of doctorates and 55.7 percent of first-professional degrees. Blacks. Males earn 34.6 percent of associate degrees, 34.1 percent of bachelors degrees, 29.8 percent of masters degrees, 38.6 percent of doctorates and 38.9 percent of first-professional degrees. Hispanics. Males earn 40.6 percent of the associate degrees, 40.3 percent of the bachelors degrees, 37.9 percent of the masters degrees, 45.0 percent of the doctorates and 51.9 percent of the first professional degrees. Asian/Pacific Islander. Males earn 43.2 percent of the associate degrees, 45.4 percent of the bachelors degrees, 46.3 percent of the master's degrees, 56.0 percent of the doctorates and 48.8 percent of the first-professional degrees. American Indian/Alaskan Native. Males earn 34.5 percent of the associate degrees, 40.8 percent of the bachelors degrees, 36.6 percent of the masters, 42.4 percent of the doctorates and 51.1 percent of the first-professional degrees. The second chart on the previous page shows the share of bachelor's degrees awarded to men by public and private institutions since The gender shift from male to female has occurred in both sectors, although somewhat more so in private institutions than in the publics. Generally institutions with engineering programs (often public universities) are least affected by the gender issue, and liberal arts colleges (often private) are most affected. As these data show nothing significant has yet happened in the U.S. to alter these trends--nothing at all. Postsecondary Education OPPORTUNITY 2

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