Blog Post

AEIdeas

The Council of Graduate Schools (CGS) released its annual report today on US graduate school enrollment and degrees for 2015 and here are some of the more interesting findings in this year’s report:

For the seventh year in a row, women earned a majority of doctoral degrees awarded at US universities in 2015. Of the 76,240 doctoral degrees awarded in 2015 (Table B.25), women earned 38,933 of those degrees and 51.8% of the total, compared to 36,296 degrees awarded to men who earned 48.2% of the total (see top chart above). The 51.8% female share of doctoral degrees in 2015 was slightly lower than the 52.2% share in the previous three years (2012, 2013 and 2014). Women have now earned a majority of doctoral degrees in each year since 2009. Previously, women started earning a majority of associate’s degrees for the first time in 1978, a majority of master’s degrees in 1981, and a majority of bachelor’s degrees in 1982 according to the Department of Education. Therefore, 2009 marked the year when men officially became the “second sex” in higher education by earning a minority of college degrees at all college levels from associate’s degrees up to doctoral degrees. By field of study, women earning doctoral degrees in 2015 outnumbered men in 7 of the 11 graduate fields tracked by the CGS (see top chart above): Arts and Humanities (52.4% female), Biology (52.4%, and one of the STEM fields that we hear so much about in terms of female under-representation), Education (67.9%), Health Sciences (69.7)%, Public Administration (65.5%), Social/Behavioral Studies (61.8%) and Other fields (51.8%). Men still earned a majority of 2015 doctoral degrees in the fields of Business (54.8% male, down from 57.1% in 2014), Engineering (76.2%), Math and Computer Science (70.6%, down from 73.9% in 2014), and Physical Sciences (64.8%). The middle chart above shows the gender breakdown for master’s degrees awarded in 2015 (from Table B.24) and the gender disparity in favor of females is significant – women earned 58.9% of all master’s degrees in 2015, which would also mean that women earned nearly 143.3 master’s degrees last year for every 100 degrees earned by men. Like for doctoral degrees, women outnumbered men in the same 7 out of the 11 fields of graduate study and in some of those fields the gender disparity was huge. For example, women earned more than 402 master’s degrees in health sciences for every 100 men, and more than 320 master’s degrees in both education and public administration for every 100 men. The bottom chart above displays total enrollment in 2015 by gender and field for all graduate school programs in the US (certificate, master’s and doctoral degrees from Table B.13), showing that there is a significant gender gap in favor of women for students attending US graduate schools. Women represent 57.4% of all graduate students in the US, meaning that there are now about 135 women enrolled in graduate school for every 100 men. In certain fields like Education (74.6% female), Health Sciences (77.4% female) and Public Administration (76.4%), women outnumber men by a factor of almost three or more. By field of study, women enrolled in graduate school outnumber men in the same 7 out of the 11 graduate fields of study noted above, with females being a minority share of graduate students in only Business (45% female), Engineering (24.2% female), Math and Computer Science (30.9% female), and Physical Sciences (36.7% female).

MP: Here’s my prediction – the facts that: a) men are underrepresented in graduate school enrollment overall (100 men were enrolled in 2015 for every 135 women), b) men received fewer master’s (less than 42% of the total) and doctoral degrees (48% of the total) than women in 2015, and c) men were underrepresented in 7 out of 11 graduate fields of study at both the master’s and doctoral levels last year will get no attention at all from feminists, gender activists, women’s centers, the media, universities, or anybody in the higher education industry.

Additionally, there will be no calls for government studies or increased government funding to address the significant gender disparities favoring women in graduate schools, and nobody will refer to the gender graduate school enrollment and degree gaps favoring women as a problem or a “crisis.” Further, neither President Obama nor Congress will address the gender graduate enrollment and degree gaps favoring women by invoking the Title IX gender-equity law, like they have threatened to do for the gender gap in some college math and science programs. And there won’t be any executive orders to address the significant under-representation of men in graduate schools by creating a White House Council on Boys and Men like the executive order issued by President Obama in 2009 to create the “White House Council on Women and Girls.” Finally, despite their stated commitment to “gender equity,” the hundreds of university women’s centers around the country are unlikely to show any concern about the significant gender inequities in graduate school enrollment and degrees, and universities will not be allocating funding to set up men’s centers or men’s commissions on college campuses or providing funding for graduate scholarships for men.

Bottom Line: If there is any attention about gender differences in the CGS annual report, it will likely be about the fact that women are a minority in 4 of the 11 fields of graduate study including engineering and computer science (a gender gap which some consider to be a “national crisis”), with calls for greater awareness of female under-representation in STEM graduate fields of study and careers (except for the STEM field of biology, where women are actually over-represented). But don’t expect any concern about the fact that men have increasingly become the second sex in higher education. The concern about gender imbalances will remain extremely selective, and will only focus on cases when women, not men, are underrepresented and in the minority.

To conclude, let me pose a few questions, paraphrasing George Mason economist Walter E. Williams: If America’s diversity worshipers see any female under-representation as a problem and possibly even as proof of gender discrimination, what do they propose should be done about female over-representation in higher education at every level and in 7 out of 11 graduate fields? After all, to be logically consistent, aren’t female over-representation and female under-representation simply different sides of gender injustice?