Posted on 06/27/2006 10:22:58 AM PDT by SmithL
Jude Onwuemeka Jr. remembers a joke in high school that explained why many of his male classmates were not planning a college education.
"More girls go to college because guys aren't stupid enough to go to college," the boys said, according to the 19-year-old Oakland native, who just finished his second year at Contra Costa College in San Pablo. "That shows you how people are thinking," he said.
At Contra Costa College, enrollment figures show that he is right: Just 35.7 percent of last fall's student body was male, the lowest percentage since at least 1992.
While Contra Costa College's male population is significantly lower than that at most institutions, a steady nationwide decline in male college students has alarmed educators. The California Postsecondary Education Commission today will discuss how to reverse the downturn, as have other state bodies and think tanks across the country.
In the California State University and University of California systems, male students significantly outnumbered women in 1976. By the mid-1980s, women had overtaken men and have continued to outpace them ever since.
In the 23-campus Cal State system, men made up just 41 percent of students last fall, while males composed about 46 percent of the UC undergraduate student body. With high-school and college graduation rates lower for males, educators and state officials are worried that fields that include nursing and engineering could suffer soon.
"This divide is becoming somewhat problematic," said Murray Haberman, executive director of the California Postsecondary Education Commission. "The divide is getting worse in that we're not going to be able to get people to enter the fields in which they're needed."
The male shortage has been amplified among African-American and Latino students, where male graduation and college-attendance rates lag more than in other ethnic communities. In Contra Costa College's heavily African-American service area, for example, males make up 48 percent of the population but less than 36 percent of the student body, said Helen Benjamin, chancellor of the Contra Costa Community College District.
It is difficult to pinpoint the reasons men don't attend college more often, she said, but their presence is needed in college classrooms.
"I think we need gender diversity just as much as we need ethnic diversity," she said. "All that's part of being college-educated."
Some students said men, especially those in poor areas, are more inclined to find jobs than to pursue an education. Recent college price increases have not helped, they said.
"A lot of them just don't view education as an option," said Vanika Moeller, a recent Contra Costa College graduate who plans to transfer to San Francisco State. "They think about earning money first."
At least one group has said the decline in male students is less serious than some believe. A study released Monday by the Washington, D.C.-based think tank Education Sector suggests that the bigger story is that female students are simply succeeding.
Although race and class issues are serious problems, educators should not panic about gender differences, said Sara Mead, the study's author.
"In the past, the problems for girls really were barriers to access," said Mead, a senior policy analyst. "I don't think that's the situation for boys now. (The male shortage) caters to society's ambivalence about how much gender roles have changed."
Female - Male ratio alone should be enough to get some guys to sign up. Why worry about all the fish in the sea when you've got a stocked pond.
Shaft's Big Score !!!
They go out of their way to raise the female student ratio while demonizing male college attendees, go out of their way to make college hostile to males, and then wonder why male students just aren't there?
Did I miss something?
*chuckle*
Maybe they should start at the high school level and change how they teach boys. It is one thing to be bored out of your mind when you are required to go to school, it is an entirely different thing to volunteer to be bored out of your mind.
ROFL!
The feminists are responsible for this unfortunate situation, because boys are all but disregarded by the feminist teachers who favor the female gender. Even many of the text books are written to favor the females. Still, I'm not certain what a majority of females in college translates to, because a great many colleges are garbage today and if you can come up with the money you can get in; and the kids graduate with about as much usable knowledge as an 8th grader obtained 40 years ago.
"It is difficult to pinpoint the reasons men don't attend college more often, she said, but their presence is needed in college classrooms."
One reason might be because men will not put up with the idiot excuses for college professors that are sadly misusing the, Free Speech Rights of Tenured Professors, to indoctrinate students into the Wild World of Communism/Socialism.
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