U.S. women are outpacing men in college completion in every major group

This isn’t surprising. It’s also not an indication that women are doing better than men writ large. Most degrees are not worth the investment. A few high performing ones hold the average up. Trades are desperate for workers and have above average pay. Men are much more likely to do those jobs. The risk is that women are going to be left with more debt and will be less employable in the long run.<p>But for a society that acts like everyone’s worth is wrapped up in whether or not you have a degree, we should be a lot more concerned about this than we are.

This makes intuitive sense---men have more opportunities to make a decent living in the trades without a college degree. See e.g. <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;iwpr.org&#x2F;numbers-matter-clarifying-the-data-on-women-working-in-construction&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;iwpr.org&#x2F;numbers-matter-clarifying-the-data-on-women...</a>.

It’s strange how far American women are ahead of men at educational achievement. Education really is a feminist utopia (not really, but more than the real world).<p>It also shows how out of touch education is that these gains don’t lead to better real world success.<p>When I was in college I got good grades. My professors told me my grades were so good, I’d almost certainly do better if I dropped out.<p>That’s how I learned higher Ed’s dirty secret: high performing drop outs do better than graduates.<p>You’d think that would lead to some soul-searching in academia. But that doesn’t seem to be happening.

I feel bad for all of the boys out there who have the potential to specialize and get a degree but are surrounded by shitty, ignorant male role models. People who have no goals, no sort of ambition left, no desire to learn, they just sit around and pat themselves on the back for being unmotivated

I&#x27;ve done a bunch of college tours this year with my daughter. Its kinda shocking to see so many homeless men on the streets, then the universities majority women. I&#x27;m kinda hoping she&#x27;ll go to a school that is 50&#x2F;50. Georgetown was at 62% female, I think Tulane is 64%.

I absolutely hate making this comment but I’m obliged to because I feel some you all are pointing at irrelevant factors, because you don’t know any better. Look at the birth rate for a better signal and the decline of single income families. Lastly, straight men, I’ll give you a secret women choose to go to school because we are taught at a young age that if getting an education is the #1 way to not be dependent on anyone. A man can easily walk out on you so it’s a poor decision to not get or finish an education. Look at when the data starts going up- that’s the generation that saw the last wave of traditional stay at home house wives and single income families. Unless you absolutely are called to be a house wife&#x2F;trad wife at 18 with your high school sweetheart… you go to school. It’s pretty obvious.

This has been clear from the data for a long time.

So should we recruit more men to college or more women to trades?

I wonder how the split is for different academic disciplines

The narrative that women don&#x27;t succeed in computer science and cybersecurity because of discrimination never aligned with my experience whatsoever.<p>Sure, when I was in high school and college, there were significantly less women. And sure, women experience discrimination in many forms, many in ways that men don&#x27;t understand or have to deal with. I get it, I&#x27;m speaking from a &quot;position of privilege&quot; as a man.<p>But I had numerous female teachers and college professors in my programming and math classes. The female students in my classes were smart, capable, and dedicated. Never once did I see them denied anything or treated differently. Female friends told me about negative experiences facing sexism, and they always came from people outside the school, or at the very least outside the CS program.<p>And yet literally everyone I talked to at this overwhelmingly left-leaning school assured me that being a female CS student was a form of torture. They could never explain why. Forget about the female-only scholarships, the conferences, the special clubs and interest groups. These middle-class college students living in one of the world&#x27;s richest cities are <i>suffering</i> in this field, and we should be doing anything and everything to help them, we will not be satisfied until we have an exact 50%-50% split.<p>I&#x27;m not saying it&#x27;s all rainbows and sunshine. Obviously sexism is still a systemic problem in many parts of American life. I have sisters, they have told some awful shit. I&#x27;m simply posing the questions - at what point does a minority group stop being disadvantaged? When do they stop being considered a minority? Who gets to decide when and how that happens? Why are there so many scholarships, interest groups, and initiatives designed to help women in STEM who are struggling, but the very real problem of men and boys struggling in other fields is largely ignored? How large does the gap between male and female education have to get before it reaches public consciousness?<p>It seems like we (the US) should be doing more across the board to help students and provide them opportunities, regardless of gender, race, sexuality, etc. Constant culture war spats and identity politics aren&#x27;t helping anyone. The vague impression from my social group is that Europeans have it figured out and we just don&#x27;t, but I really don&#x27;t know if that&#x27;s true.

Professionally one trend I have noticed is an increasing number of women programmers particularly at my current company, and they are all extremely competent and hungry. It could be our target universities but articles like this suggest maybe it&#x27;s simply a more general trend. I suspect the other new grads entering aren&#x27;t batting an eye but to me it&#x27;s an extreme and refreshing departure from when I started. Curious if others are noticing an increasing number of women programmers hired into their orgs?

Men can be more easily drawn to the trades for what seems like much easier money. When I was a poor student I had friends working in house building, driving trucks and even 1 working in a foundry. They all had nicer cars and more beer money than me until I graduated.

Was to be expected.<p>US used to be a deeply racist and sexist country, and in order to &quot;make things up&quot;, people overcorrected, effectively creating a society that hates white men. Now the pendulum is slowly swinging back. Give it 50 years, white men will be in the position of power again, albeit to a lesser degree. Then it&#x27;s going to be women and non-whites again. These cycles will keep going on. The idea that a deeply racist and sexist country would magically stop being such &quot;because we&#x27;ve collectively decided not to be sexist and racist anymore&quot; was naive. It&#x27;s going to take generations to create a society where people are truly equal.

Not a surprise. Men don’t go where they’re not wanted.

It&#x27;s amusing how nearly all comments so far are a bit defensive.<p>Not so long ago women were not allowed in academia; shouldn&#x27;t the first reaction be &quot;yay!&quot;?

It&#x27;s sad that women are dominating in accrual of debt to purchase something where the actual value is drifting downward rapidly. Yes, there are places demanding the credential, but they&#x27;re entering the region of danger where what they actually are selecting is people with poor cost&#x2F;benefit analysis skills.

We are no longer in a knowledge economy. This is a grifter and entertainer&#x2F;jester economy now.

Within this context i find it amusing that i still have seen scholarships that are only for women, none that are only for men. I&#x27;m still burdened by student loans that i never would have had in the first place if i were female.

Insane costs and high tuition fees are the root cause of this. Men from all backgrounds have generally been taught from the beginning to join college as a step for moving forward in life, but now more and more of them are discovering they are better off finding a trade instead of getting straddled in debt for a credential that doesn&#x27;t even come close to being worth what it&#x27;s charged.<p>Women who get into college, meanwhile, have the dynamics set up in such a way that they are less restricted by any urgency to get financially independent <i>fast</i>, since the set of women being able to get into college will automatically self-select for those who have plenty of safety nets.

This is why the men are beginning to form political identities in opposition to women.

The value of a college degree is in the toilet

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Why is this even measured? What do we actually achieve from this metric as a goal, one way or another?

You know, it was just 50 or so years ago that the only option a woman had was to attach herself to a man and hope he’s not a mean drunk. Now women actually have options in life and they are availing themselves. Good for them. Of course, now all these HNers suddenly saying college degrees aren’t worth anything because, you know, women.

Frankly I think most collage degree programs are used as a continuation of high school for those who are afraid or just not looking to grow up and go out into the market.

Is college really a useful signal? I think it matters which school, what degree, and whether a person would have got into that college due to affirmative action &#x2F; DEI programs. Sure college is a useful signal for some subset. For the rest it is more a sign that you’re willing to take on debt for either the college experience itself or status or signaling.