For the first time in history, more women than men are better educated than their spouse, reports Brookings. According to research from Institute for Family Studies (IFS) a record 25.3 percent of husbands are now married to wives who have more education than they do. This is due, in part, to the dramatic increase of women in higher education. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, 56 percent of college students are women. That means there are 2.2 million fewer men than women enrolled in college.

But even though women have more educational attainment and are more likely to "marry down" educationally, they are still more likely to be out-earned by their partners. Across all heterosexual couples, 73 percent of men have a higher income than their spouse. "In fact, regardless of how men's education compares to their wives,' husbands still end up having an edge on earnings," writes Wendy Wang, director of research at the IFS. This inconsistency between educational attainment and income among married couples is also prevalent among newlyweds who are often in the early stages of their careers. Of couples who married in 2015, just 20 percent of husbands had more education than their wives, yet 67 percent earned more.