Report finds women are 56 percent of undergrad students

Gender inequality still exists in higher education, though not
in the way many might expect. Women now represent more of the U.S.
undergraduate population than men, according to a report released
by the National Center for Education Statistics. The center’s
study found that over the last three decades, women went from being
the minority to the majority in the U.S. undergraduate student
population.

In 1970, women represented 42 percent of the undergraduate
population at U.S. colleges and universities, and by 2001 that
amount had increased to 56 percent. The report also projected that
by 2013, women will likely increase to 57 percent of the
undergraduate population. But the study also revealed that after
college, inequity persists in the form of disparate salaries.

The report also showed an increase in the number of women who
complete their undergraduate studies and attain a bachelor’s
degree. In 2001, when women represented 60 percent of
bachelor’s degree recipients, 742,084 bachelor’s
degrees were awarded to women, compared to 549,816 men.

One factor that accounts for the rise in women attending and
completing college is an increase in traditional female students.
While women have historically been overrepresented among
nontraditional students ““ a category that includes single
parents, older students and low-income students ““ now a
greater number of women are entering college right after high
school.

“One of the things that we’ve seen is a greater
likelihood of young girls to make the decision to go to college,
and to see education as a means of furthering their academic
goals,” said UCLA education professor Linda Sax. She added
that differences among male and female college attendees appear
most distinctly among low-income students.

“Low-income males are less likely than low-income females
to go to college,” Sax said, attributing this phenomenon to a
greater incentive among lower-income men to seek employment
immediately following high school, rather than the costlier pursuit
of a college degree. “The young men often have a pressure to
make money, to get a job right after high school,” Sax
said.

She also noted that at higher income levels the difference is
less marked, an observation supported by the study, which reported
that 60 percent of low-income undergraduate students were women in
2001, while at the highest income levels women made up 53 percent
of undergraduates. This discrepancy reveals that income level has a
strong relationship with gender equality in undergraduate
enrollment. While he admitted he couldn’t comment on
differences in college enrollment among varying income levels,
Loren Drake, a counselor at Fairfax High School in Los Angeles,
said he had definitely seen an increase in interest among female
students at Fairfax in attending college.

“It seems like there are more female students interested
in going on to four-year universities,” he said. At Fairfax,
Drake attributed this increase in part to outreach and
encouragement efforts taken by counselors and teachers.

The University of California’s admissions and enrollment
data reflects the nationwide trend of women’s increasing
presence in higher education. According to UC admissions rates, the
number of women admitted to the university rose from 30,224 in 1999
to 35,858 in 2004. Throughout this period, women represented a
greater portion of the undergraduate population than did men. Of
the upward trend in women in undergraduate education, American
Association of University Women spokeswoman Jean-Marie Navetta
said, “It’s fantastic.”

“It’s very much a product of a lot of hard work and
legislation,” she said.

Navetta also stressed the influence that Title IX ““
legislation passed in 1972 that prohibits sex discrimination in
federally assisted education programs ““ has had in promoting
gender equity in higher education. But despite her enthusiasm about
the rise in the number of women in undergraduate education, Navetta
said that inequality in the workplace is still a reality.

“When women get into the workforce, they continue to earn
less than men,” Navetta said.

The data provided in the report affirmed this observation. The
difference between salary earnings of men and women actually grew
between 1994 and 2001, from $5,100 to $6,800, on average. The
fields of study that saw the greatest increase in the difference
between men’s and women’s salaries were engineering,
math and sciences, and humanities and social/behavioral sciences,
while in education and business the earnings gap narrowed.