Why Men Are the New College Minority Feb 20 Written By Lessina Cline “Jessica Smith raised an arm and pointed across the lobby of the university student center like an ornithologist who had just spied a rare breed in the underbrush.“There’s one,” she said.It was, in fact, an unusual bird that Smith had spotted, especially on this campus: masculum collegium discipulus. A male college student.That’s an extreme example of a surprising shift besetting all of higher education.Where men once went to college in proportions far higher than women—58 percent to 42 percent as recently as the 1970s—the ratio has now almost exactly reversed.This fall, women will comprise more than 56 percent of students on campuses nationwide, according to the U.S. Department of Education. Some 2.2 million fewer men than women will be enrolled in college this year. And the trend shows no sign of abating. By 2026, the department estimates, 57 percent of college students will be women.The new minority on campus? Men.That’s an irony not lost on Jennifer Carlo, the vice president of student engagement and student affairs at Carlow University, which is trying all kinds of ideas to bolster its supply of men—including showcasing male college-success stories as examples to prospective applicants.“It didn’t used to be that you were worried about providing role models and mentors for males,” Carlo mused.Started as an all-women’s college by an order of nuns, Carlow has had a longer road to travel than most other institutions to balance its enrollment by gender; although it has admitted men to its degree programs for nearly 50 years, it has recruited them aggressively only since 2004.The university is adding sports teams to attract more men, including men’s track and field this fall, and men are disproportionately represented in the promotional photos on its website and marketing materials. There are also new degree programs in fields such as business meant in part to appeal to men.Carlow has a lot of competition. Reeling from a years-long decline in overall enrollment, colleges and universities nationwide are vying for all the students they can get, and suddenly paying new attention to bolstering the number of men who apply. “Oh, my heavens, yes,” Carlo said. The flow of prospective students has been dropping off for so long, she said, “you’ve got to have everybody.”So while much attention has been focused on the controversy over gender-neutral bathrooms on campuses, she said, the much bigger gender issue behind the scenes at universities and colleges is how to draw more men.Though advocates complain that few in higher education are doing enough to keep those men who do get there from leaving, there’s consensus that men’s reluctance to enroll in the first place isn’t necessarily the colleges’ fault. The problem has its origins as early as primary school, only to be fueled later on by economic forces that discourage men from believing a degree is worth the time and money.“It’s funny that it’s the colleges that are finally seeing this issue and trying to resolve it,” said Patrick Maloney, the president of the Nativity School, a Jesuit Catholic middle school in the central Massachusetts city of Worcester that tries to aim low-income boys toward college. That’s because, by the time students reach college age, Maloney said, “It’s way too late. You’ve already lost them. Maybe [admissions officers] should be going into middle schools and start talking to fifth-graders about the benefits of college education.”Or even earlier than that. The “anti-school, anti-education sentiment” in boys has roots in kindergarten, when they’re slower to learn to read than girls, said Jim Shelley, the manager of the Men’s Resource Center at Lakeland Community College in Ohio. Girls at the primary and secondary level worldwide far outperform boys in reading, according to the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development.” — Jon Marcus Aug 8, 2017 Lessina Cline
Why Men Are the New College Minority Feb 20 Written By Lessina Cline “Jessica Smith raised an arm and pointed across the lobby of the university student center like an ornithologist who had just spied a rare breed in the underbrush.“There’s one,” she said.It was, in fact, an unusual bird that Smith had spotted, especially on this campus: masculum collegium discipulus. A male college student.That’s an extreme example of a surprising shift besetting all of higher education.Where men once went to college in proportions far higher than women—58 percent to 42 percent as recently as the 1970s—the ratio has now almost exactly reversed.This fall, women will comprise more than 56 percent of students on campuses nationwide, according to the U.S. Department of Education. Some 2.2 million fewer men than women will be enrolled in college this year. And the trend shows no sign of abating. By 2026, the department estimates, 57 percent of college students will be women.The new minority on campus? Men.That’s an irony not lost on Jennifer Carlo, the vice president of student engagement and student affairs at Carlow University, which is trying all kinds of ideas to bolster its supply of men—including showcasing male college-success stories as examples to prospective applicants.“It didn’t used to be that you were worried about providing role models and mentors for males,” Carlo mused.Started as an all-women’s college by an order of nuns, Carlow has had a longer road to travel than most other institutions to balance its enrollment by gender; although it has admitted men to its degree programs for nearly 50 years, it has recruited them aggressively only since 2004.The university is adding sports teams to attract more men, including men’s track and field this fall, and men are disproportionately represented in the promotional photos on its website and marketing materials. There are also new degree programs in fields such as business meant in part to appeal to men.Carlow has a lot of competition. Reeling from a years-long decline in overall enrollment, colleges and universities nationwide are vying for all the students they can get, and suddenly paying new attention to bolstering the number of men who apply. “Oh, my heavens, yes,” Carlo said. The flow of prospective students has been dropping off for so long, she said, “you’ve got to have everybody.”So while much attention has been focused on the controversy over gender-neutral bathrooms on campuses, she said, the much bigger gender issue behind the scenes at universities and colleges is how to draw more men.Though advocates complain that few in higher education are doing enough to keep those men who do get there from leaving, there’s consensus that men’s reluctance to enroll in the first place isn’t necessarily the colleges’ fault. The problem has its origins as early as primary school, only to be fueled later on by economic forces that discourage men from believing a degree is worth the time and money.“It’s funny that it’s the colleges that are finally seeing this issue and trying to resolve it,” said Patrick Maloney, the president of the Nativity School, a Jesuit Catholic middle school in the central Massachusetts city of Worcester that tries to aim low-income boys toward college. That’s because, by the time students reach college age, Maloney said, “It’s way too late. You’ve already lost them. Maybe [admissions officers] should be going into middle schools and start talking to fifth-graders about the benefits of college education.”Or even earlier than that. The “anti-school, anti-education sentiment” in boys has roots in kindergarten, when they’re slower to learn to read than girls, said Jim Shelley, the manager of the Men’s Resource Center at Lakeland Community College in Ohio. Girls at the primary and secondary level worldwide far outperform boys in reading, according to the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development.” — Jon Marcus Aug 8, 2017 Lessina Cline