8 ms·

Men Are the New College Minority

73 points by pmalynin 9y ago

godzillabrennus 9y ago
Might be because Men are waking up to the reality that they can make more money going to a trade school.
- Caveman_Coder 9y ago
  That is probably part of it, but the work they'll be doing is more labor intensive. I was a union electrician/power plant operator for nearly a decade before I finished my degree in CS and took a job as a software developer. I'm not in SV/NY/Seattle so my pay is roughly equal to what I was making as a topped-out Journeyman, but the work is less stressful on the body. In the trades, after the job was over or I had turned over to the oncoming shift operator, I didn't think about work at all until my next shift, it was great, my off-time was mine. It was much better mentally compared to now where I have to have my phone on me at all times and respond to emails from our customers (granted, my customers or Transmission System and Distribution System operators controlling the electrical grid, so it is pretty critical when the applications experience issues). There are pros and cons of each, with pay being roughly equal (outside of the major tech hubs). Am I glad I switched? Sometimes, but the skilled trades (electrician, pipe-fitter, plumber, HVAC tech, welder, etc.) are definitely a good way to go if you want to learn a useful skill and have a relatively stable middle class life.
  - virmundi 9y ago
    If they learn things! That’s a huge if. People in all jobs appear to only want to learn in first five years and the be done. They don’t learn new things. They don’t learn about new products. They just what they always do. For example how many Floridian contractors know about Bora Care? From my interactions, few. It poisons wood. Termites can’t eat it. In Florida you can charge an extra 1k for a house and permanently protect the home from termites. Few even know to offer as a perk on restoration. Think about it, for $75 plus labor a reno contractor could termite proof your kitchen studs while they redo the walls. Poor training.
    - ams6110 9y ago
      I think you're being a bit too sweeping, but your point doesn't apply only to tradespeople at all. The good ones are constantly learning and keeping up with new technology as much as any of us are. The lazy ones don't, and I know plenty of developers who only learn something new when they have to, and expect it to be delivered on a plate in the form of an offsite "training" session. Home renovation is also where a lot of bottom-feeders end up. It's very easy to do and doesn't require much skill to get into.
      - Caveman_Coder 9y ago
        > "Home renovation is also where a lot of bottom-feeders end up. It's very easy to do and doesn't require much skill to get into." When I was talking about skilled trades I was mainly referring to your union/licensed/Journeyman types. We had continued training programs to keep up with latest NEC/NFPA/ASHRAE/ASME changes. We also had the option of teaching at the union hall (all apprentices work normal days and go to training at the hall on Tues/Thurs) to earn a little bit extra money. I've met good craftsman as well as lazy ones, but like you said, now that I'm a full-time developer, the same still holds in our industry as I'm sure it does in most industries.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
lev99 9y ago
Having more male teachers in K-12, with a specific need on the earlier years, can help boys stay interested in education longer. 76% of the teachers are female [0], with most of the male teachers teaching in later years. This isn't a silver bullet, and I don't have advice on how to achieve this, but my gut tells me this can help. Male teachers provide male role models for boys to look up to. Male teachers have a more personal understanding of what it is to be a boy. Men and boys communicate differently than women and boys do. Male teachers show boys that education is something males value enough with their time and attention. [0]https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=28 https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=28
- mistermann 9y ago
  Considering the current climate in the West, a man would have to be on Evil Knievel's level of foolhardiness to take a job teaching.
  - nicky0 9y ago
    How so?
    - pattisapu 9y ago
      Accusations of molestation or being creepy are much greater risks for men considering the field.
      - IntronExon 9y ago
        Edit: Oh hell I didn’t realize the climate was this polarized here. I’m just deleting what I can and getting out, I come to HN to avoid this, not embrace it.
        cwbrandsma 9y ago
        Todays headline in my local community is about a female teacher having sex with a 17 year old boy and then harassing him. These situations happen with both genders. But we have also determined that men are predators and women are victims. So this case will either forgotten or seen as an oddity in a moments notice. Flip the genders and it is "See, men are evil!".
bjornstjerne 9y ago
> Through 21 years running one of the few campus support centers exclusively for men, he said, “I’ve thought it can only get better. But it just has gone nowhere. Not only are there not programs like ours that are supportive of male students, but at most college campuses the attitude is that men are the problem. … I’ve had male students tell me that their first week in college they were made to feel like potential rapists.” > Added Maloney: “There’s a lot of attention on empowering girls. I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with that, but males are the ones in crisis in education.” We could start by fixing this problem, which seems like it should be one of the easiest to solve. Lets make sure college is not a hostile environment for anyone, including men.
- dandersh 9y ago
  And how do we discern if the environment is hostile, for example, if there is disagreement amongst men in a women's psych class? Do we decide based on whichever side is larger? Whichever side is louder? And what if the perceived hostile environment is, in fact, not hostile? What if it is the result of being exposed to new ideas, new group dynamics, an inability to separate oneself from the group they are a member of, breakdown in communication/terminology, etc.? What if actions taken to improve the environment for one group is felt to be hostile to a different group? Then what? No, I think this problem is significantly harder than you believe.
- minikites 9y ago
  >I’ve had male students tell me that their first week in college they were made to feel like potential rapists. Considering men are vastly more likely to misunderstand consent, what do you propose instead?
  - nyolfen 9y ago
    would you say this kind of thing -- x are more likely to y, and should categorically be treated as such -- about any other identity group?
    - minikites 9y ago
muninn_ 9y ago
I thought this was an interesting quote: "discourage men from believing a degree is worth the time and money" I don't think that's so much the case as it is men are shamed and discouraged in popular culture right now and particularly on campus. There are so many women's programs (which I have no problem with), yet how many men's programs are there? The typical rebuttal is always "man up and take it" or men have an inherent advantage, but what happens when that advantage has actually disappeared? If I attempted to form a men in engineering group when I was a student I would have been sued and expelled for gender bias or sexual harassment or something. We need to make sure we continue to make men feel valued by society. I think with the 24/7 news cycle and how focused it is on the bad things that some men do (and how all men are subsequently guilty be association) it's no wonder that men are dropping out of society.
MollyR 9y ago
College is a poor return on investment right now. I think more women should avoid it too. The cost of tuition is simply far too high for the real value, of course this differs by majors and degrees. Overall its just not worth the debt load. I think the overall drive to send people to college simply turned it into a a high school diploma 2.0 except now we have soo many kids deep in soul crushing debt. At the same time jobs are decreasing in value or total to exported labor or automation, we are really having multiple overlapping crises each making the overall domestic situation worse. It's really concerning. I'm fully expecting a social revolution from the post millennials, whether it leads to good times or hard times, who knows. But I do know I won't be sending my kids to a university in its current form, I'm hoping Khan Academy becomes the model for replacement. EDIT: my kids won't be going to college for another 16 years. I highly doubt colleges won't undergo some kind of significant change.
- Slansitartop 9y ago
  > But I do know I won't be sending my kids to a university in its current form, I'm hoping Khan Academy becomes the model for replacement. IMHO, that's foolish. Education is too important to rely on unproven stuff Khan Academy. It's totally their call, but I'm going to do what I can to encourage my kids to go to a reasonably good, but low cost state school. In the mean time, I'm going to make it known to my state legislators that affordable public college education is my main priority from them.
- lev99 9y ago
  I strongly disagree. If you judge an education by three factors you can see there are opportunities to receive great ROIs from a college degree. 1) Which degree you receive. 2) Which institution you receive it from. 3) Your total out of pocket expenses for four years. (Tuition + Fees + Living Expenses + Interest - Scholarships - Salaries) My $55,000 out of pocket degree payed for itself and all opportunity costs in 5 years, and I fully enjoyed my college experience.
  - MollyR 9y ago
    When did you get your degree ? I recently looked at some college prices out of curiosity my alma matter is now 50,000 per year with 16,000 in other expenses. I would never have gone there if I had to pay those prices.
kough 9y ago
I wish the authors had broken down the statistics better, but on the whole it was refreshing to see a discussion around college not focused on the same few elite private universities. The way we as a culture tell stories about college is so disproportionately affected by those universities that it's hard to really understand things like "student debt" or "rape on campus" -- I forget where I read it, but I believe that the average American college student is involved in a 2-year community college. I think all discussions of "college" need to specify what "college" means: private elite university, private university, public university, community college. Also, interesting to see how as soon as there is a gender disparity people reach for the "pipeline problem" as the most likely explainer.
Isamu 9y ago
44% men vs. 56% women this fall. What a crisis.
- frozenport 9y ago
  Except in STEM :-(
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- lev99 9y ago
  Trends matter. It's easier to fix 44 to 56 than 40 to 60 or 35 to 65.
- rainbowmverse 9y ago
  Women used to be the majority of programmers. It's not a crisis if the numbers shift back that way unless it's for the reason most programmers were women before (undervaluing of the work), but the trend is still worth keeping in mind. Demographic shifts take time. If the pipeline is a problem one way, it's a problem the other way even if it's still close to 1:1.
- epicureanideal 9y ago
  I think the issue is the inconsistency, or possible double standard, with considering this gap "okay" but similar gaps "not okay" if the genders are reversed. I'm for equal opportunities (and upbringing and social environment to encourage use of those opportunities) for both genders. I hope others who share that view will be consistent in their application of it. For example, if as a result of the education imbalance, some day in the future the pay gap is such that men earn 70 cents on the dollar to what women make, are the same people who say "that's not okay" if it's true about women going to say "that's okay" when it's about men? My anecdotal experience leads me to think that might happen.
  - AnimalMuppet 9y ago
    I suspect that there are many people who would accept a 1% difference without blinking, but would view a 5% difference with concern, and regard a 30% difference as clearly unacceptable.
netrap 9y ago
The main school in the story was originally an all girls school, which I think has an effect now since they only started to promote it to men starting in 2004. I am willing to guess that overall the numbers aren't that bad, with a little bit less men than women.
vbtemp 9y ago
From the article: > Added Maloney: “There’s a lot of attention on empowering girls. I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with that, but males are the ones in crisis in education.” It's no secret here that there is a crisis of masculinity and of men's role in our society. There are plenty of men at the top, and plenty in powerful positions. Contemporary social justice movements certainly are aware of that. But what they don't account for is this: most mean are _not_ in positions of power, and a lot are living lives in the shadows of underemployment and partnerlessness. In this environment men get squeezed at both ends: Painted as suspicious and exploitative when successful, but still shamed and unable to find partners when not successful. When people offer compelling messages that resonate with men - take for example Jordan Peterson's message of living honestly, embracing duty and responsibility, and promoting conscientious habits - it is immediately pilloried as regressive or simply horrible. And we end up back where we started: A relative handful of successful men that made it "over the hump", and the rest who live in society's margins with little interest or regard by broader society and increasingly distanced from wealth, mates, and family. There will be fallout still for generations to come.
noobermin 9y ago
While I sympathize somewhat, I suspect (most likely due to my own biases) that there is a strong economic class component to this trend they note. I think it's more likely that wealthier men from wealthier families are more likely to end up enrolled in college than poorer men or men or boys who come from lesser means. Like everything in America, just focusing on ethnic or gender groups before class doesn't really work to reverse the more real disenfranchisement that exists in society.
- aetherson 9y ago
  Of course that's true (and it's the same for women: higher socio-economic status is positively correlated with college matriculation and graduation across sex and race lines). But it's always been true, so what changed?
  - Caveman_Coder 9y ago
    What's changed is that while there are groups advocating for pretty much every group, poor white men are lumped into the same category as rich white men, and are seen as "not needing help" or being a part of the "ruling hierarchy" even though they are poor. I think that is what OP was getting at, that is, by looking first at race/gender, before class, you're alienating a whole group of poor white males that don't see themselves as part of the dominant "white male" narrative. They're struggling just like all the other poor people, but told they "have it good" because they're white, and this is contrary to what they experience day-in and day-out.
kbos87 9y ago
What seems to be playing out on college campuses is in stark contrast to what is playing out inside many employers. Our leadership is getting its feet held to the fire to find more qualified female candidates for exec roles, which are dominated by white men. Is this likely to equalize itself over time?
- MollyR 9y ago
  My personal theory probably not. Its looks like small but significant percentage of men are extraordinarily sensitive to economic advantages of different activities. I think the bitcoin billionaires and millionaires are mostly men, and good evidence of something changing.
inamberclad 9y ago
> Men may also feel they have more alternatives to college than girls do. “For a lot of my [male] high school friends, it was just too much time,” said Smith, the orientation leader at Carlow. “They were ready to get out. As opposed to a four-year college, they could go to an 18-month [vocational-education] program and make just as much money.” Seems like something that HN loves to push.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
drablyechoes 9y ago
Perhaps it is the case that women are just smarter and find education more appealing than their male peers, in aggregate. Access to higher education for women is still a relatively new thing, historically speaking, so why is it even surprising that the demographics continue to change?
benlorenzetti 9y ago
The articles' subtitle: >> Males are enrolling in higher education at alarmingly low rates, and some colleges are working hard to reverse the trend. This may not be alarming depending on how you weigh the value added by college. Conference of credentials by/for authority vs competence and independence with work.
mesozoic 9y ago
Finally getting that diversity they wanted!

73 points by pmalynin 9y ago

godzillabrennus 9y ago

Might be because Men are waking up to the reality that they can make more money going to a trade school.

Caveman_Coder 9y ago
That is probably part of it, but the work they'll be doing is more labor intensive. I was a union electrician/power plant operator for nearly a decade before I finished my degree in CS and took a job as a software developer. I'm not in SV/NY/Seattle so my pay is roughly equal to what I was making as a topped-out Journeyman, but the work is less stressful on the body. In the trades, after the job was over or I had turned over to the oncoming shift operator, I didn't think about work at all until my next shift, it was great, my off-time was mine. It was much better mentally compared to now where I have to have my phone on me at all times and respond to emails from our customers (granted, my customers or Transmission System and Distribution System operators controlling the electrical grid, so it is pretty critical when the applications experience issues). There are pros and cons of each, with pay being roughly equal (outside of the major tech hubs). Am I glad I switched? Sometimes, but the skilled trades (electrician, pipe-fitter, plumber, HVAC tech, welder, etc.) are definitely a good way to go if you want to learn a useful skill and have a relatively stable middle class life.
- virmundi 9y ago
  If they learn things! That’s a huge if. People in all jobs appear to only want to learn in first five years and the be done. They don’t learn new things. They don’t learn about new products. They just what they always do. For example how many Floridian contractors know about Bora Care? From my interactions, few. It poisons wood. Termites can’t eat it. In Florida you can charge an extra 1k for a house and permanently protect the home from termites. Few even know to offer as a perk on restoration. Think about it, for $75 plus labor a reno contractor could termite proof your kitchen studs while they redo the walls. Poor training.
  - ams6110 9y ago
    I think you're being a bit too sweeping, but your point doesn't apply only to tradespeople at all. The good ones are constantly learning and keeping up with new technology as much as any of us are. The lazy ones don't, and I know plenty of developers who only learn something new when they have to, and expect it to be delivered on a plate in the form of an offsite "training" session. Home renovation is also where a lot of bottom-feeders end up. It's very easy to do and doesn't require much skill to get into.
    - Caveman_Coder 9y ago
      > "Home renovation is also where a lot of bottom-feeders end up. It's very easy to do and doesn't require much skill to get into." When I was talking about skilled trades I was mainly referring to your union/licensed/Journeyman types. We had continued training programs to keep up with latest NEC/NFPA/ASHRAE/ASME changes. We also had the option of teaching at the union hall (all apprentices work normal days and go to training at the hall on Tues/Thurs) to earn a little bit extra money. I've met good craftsman as well as lazy ones, but like you said, now that I'm a full-time developer, the same still holds in our industry as I'm sure it does in most industries.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

lev99 9y ago

Having more male teachers in K-12, with a specific need on the earlier years, can help boys stay interested in education longer. 76% of the teachers are female [0], with most of the male teachers teaching in later years. This isn't a silver bullet, and I don't have advice on how to achieve this, but my gut tells me this can help. Male teachers provide male role models for boys to look up to. Male teachers have a more personal understanding of what it is to be a boy. Men and boys communicate differently than women and boys do. Male teachers show boys that education is something males value enough with their time and attention. [0]https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=28 https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=28

mistermann 9y ago
Considering the current climate in the West, a man would have to be on Evil Knievel's level of foolhardiness to take a job teaching.
- nicky0 9y ago
  How so?
  - pattisapu 9y ago
    Accusations of molestation or being creepy are much greater risks for men considering the field.
    - IntronExon 9y ago
      Edit: Oh hell I didn’t realize the climate was this polarized here. I’m just deleting what I can and getting out, I come to HN to avoid this, not embrace it.
      - cwbrandsma 9y ago
        Todays headline in my local community is about a female teacher having sex with a 17 year old boy and then harassing him. These situations happen with both genders. But we have also determined that men are predators and women are victims. So this case will either forgotten or seen as an oddity in a moments notice. Flip the genders and it is "See, men are evil!".

bjornstjerne 9y ago

> Through 21 years running one of the few campus support centers exclusively for men, he said, “I’ve thought it can only get better. But it just has gone nowhere. Not only are there not programs like ours that are supportive of male students, but at most college campuses the attitude is that men are the problem. … I’ve had male students tell me that their first week in college they were made to feel like potential rapists.” > Added Maloney: “There’s a lot of attention on empowering girls. I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with that, but males are the ones in crisis in education.” We could start by fixing this problem, which seems like it should be one of the easiest to solve. Lets make sure college is not a hostile environment for anyone, including men.

dandersh 9y ago
And how do we discern if the environment is hostile, for example, if there is disagreement amongst men in a women's psych class? Do we decide based on whichever side is larger? Whichever side is louder? And what if the perceived hostile environment is, in fact, not hostile? What if it is the result of being exposed to new ideas, new group dynamics, an inability to separate oneself from the group they are a member of, breakdown in communication/terminology, etc.? What if actions taken to improve the environment for one group is felt to be hostile to a different group? Then what? No, I think this problem is significantly harder than you believe.
minikites 9y ago
>I’ve had male students tell me that their first week in college they were made to feel like potential rapists. Considering men are vastly more likely to misunderstand consent, what do you propose instead?
- nyolfen 9y ago
  would you say this kind of thing -- x are more likely to y, and should categorically be treated as such -- about any other identity group?
  - minikites 9y ago

muninn_ 9y ago

I thought this was an interesting quote: "discourage men from believing a degree is worth the time and money" I don't think that's so much the case as it is men are shamed and discouraged in popular culture right now and particularly on campus. There are so many women's programs (which I have no problem with), yet how many men's programs are there? The typical rebuttal is always "man up and take it" or men have an inherent advantage, but what happens when that advantage has actually disappeared? If I attempted to form a men in engineering group when I was a student I would have been sued and expelled for gender bias or sexual harassment or something. We need to make sure we continue to make men feel valued by society. I think with the 24/7 news cycle and how focused it is on the bad things that some men do (and how all men are subsequently guilty be association) it's no wonder that men are dropping out of society.

MollyR 9y ago

College is a poor return on investment right now. I think more women should avoid it too. The cost of tuition is simply far too high for the real value, of course this differs by majors and degrees. Overall its just not worth the debt load. I think the overall drive to send people to college simply turned it into a a high school diploma 2.0 except now we have soo many kids deep in soul crushing debt. At the same time jobs are decreasing in value or total to exported labor or automation, we are really having multiple overlapping crises each making the overall domestic situation worse. It's really concerning. I'm fully expecting a social revolution from the post millennials, whether it leads to good times or hard times, who knows. But I do know I won't be sending my kids to a university in its current form, I'm hoping Khan Academy becomes the model for replacement. EDIT: my kids won't be going to college for another 16 years. I highly doubt colleges won't undergo some kind of significant change.

Slansitartop 9y ago
> But I do know I won't be sending my kids to a university in its current form, I'm hoping Khan Academy becomes the model for replacement. IMHO, that's foolish. Education is too important to rely on unproven stuff Khan Academy. It's totally their call, but I'm going to do what I can to encourage my kids to go to a reasonably good, but low cost state school. In the mean time, I'm going to make it known to my state legislators that affordable public college education is my main priority from them.
lev99 9y ago
I strongly disagree. If you judge an education by three factors you can see there are opportunities to receive great ROIs from a college degree. 1) Which degree you receive. 2) Which institution you receive it from. 3) Your total out of pocket expenses for four years. (Tuition + Fees + Living Expenses + Interest - Scholarships - Salaries) My $55,000 out of pocket degree payed for itself and all opportunity costs in 5 years, and I fully enjoyed my college experience.
- MollyR 9y ago
  When did you get your degree ? I recently looked at some college prices out of curiosity my alma matter is now 50,000 per year with 16,000 in other expenses. I would never have gone there if I had to pay those prices.

kough 9y ago

I wish the authors had broken down the statistics better, but on the whole it was refreshing to see a discussion around college not focused on the same few elite private universities. The way we as a culture tell stories about college is so disproportionately affected by those universities that it's hard to really understand things like "student debt" or "rape on campus" -- I forget where I read it, but I believe that the average American college student is involved in a 2-year community college. I think all discussions of "college" need to specify what "college" means: private elite university, private university, public university, community college. Also, interesting to see how as soon as there is a gender disparity people reach for the "pipeline problem" as the most likely explainer.

Isamu 9y ago

44% men vs. 56% women this fall. What a crisis.

frozenport 9y ago
Except in STEM :-(
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
lev99 9y ago
Trends matter. It's easier to fix 44 to 56 than 40 to 60 or 35 to 65.
rainbowmverse 9y ago
Women used to be the majority of programmers. It's not a crisis if the numbers shift back that way unless it's for the reason most programmers were women before (undervaluing of the work), but the trend is still worth keeping in mind. Demographic shifts take time. If the pipeline is a problem one way, it's a problem the other way even if it's still close to 1:1.
epicureanideal 9y ago
I think the issue is the inconsistency, or possible double standard, with considering this gap "okay" but similar gaps "not okay" if the genders are reversed. I'm for equal opportunities (and upbringing and social environment to encourage use of those opportunities) for both genders. I hope others who share that view will be consistent in their application of it. For example, if as a result of the education imbalance, some day in the future the pay gap is such that men earn 70 cents on the dollar to what women make, are the same people who say "that's not okay" if it's true about women going to say "that's okay" when it's about men? My anecdotal experience leads me to think that might happen.
- AnimalMuppet 9y ago
  I suspect that there are many people who would accept a 1% difference without blinking, but would view a 5% difference with concern, and regard a 30% difference as clearly unacceptable.

netrap 9y ago

The main school in the story was originally an all girls school, which I think has an effect now since they only started to promote it to men starting in 2004. I am willing to guess that overall the numbers aren't that bad, with a little bit less men than women.

vbtemp 9y ago

From the article: > Added Maloney: “There’s a lot of attention on empowering girls. I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with that, but males are the ones in crisis in education.” It's no secret here that there is a crisis of masculinity and of men's role in our society. There are plenty of men at the top, and plenty in powerful positions. Contemporary social justice movements certainly are aware of that. But what they don't account for is this: most mean are _not_ in positions of power, and a lot are living lives in the shadows of underemployment and partnerlessness. In this environment men get squeezed at both ends: Painted as suspicious and exploitative when successful, but still shamed and unable to find partners when not successful. When people offer compelling messages that resonate with men - take for example Jordan Peterson's message of living honestly, embracing duty and responsibility, and promoting conscientious habits - it is immediately pilloried as regressive or simply horrible. And we end up back where we started: A relative handful of successful men that made it "over the hump", and the rest who live in society's margins with little interest or regard by broader society and increasingly distanced from wealth, mates, and family. There will be fallout still for generations to come.

noobermin 9y ago

While I sympathize somewhat, I suspect (most likely due to my own biases) that there is a strong economic class component to this trend they note. I think it's more likely that wealthier men from wealthier families are more likely to end up enrolled in college than poorer men or men or boys who come from lesser means. Like everything in America, just focusing on ethnic or gender groups before class doesn't really work to reverse the more real disenfranchisement that exists in society.

aetherson 9y ago
Of course that's true (and it's the same for women: higher socio-economic status is positively correlated with college matriculation and graduation across sex and race lines). But it's always been true, so what changed?
- Caveman_Coder 9y ago
  What's changed is that while there are groups advocating for pretty much every group, poor white men are lumped into the same category as rich white men, and are seen as "not needing help" or being a part of the "ruling hierarchy" even though they are poor. I think that is what OP was getting at, that is, by looking first at race/gender, before class, you're alienating a whole group of poor white males that don't see themselves as part of the dominant "white male" narrative. They're struggling just like all the other poor people, but told they "have it good" because they're white, and this is contrary to what they experience day-in and day-out.

kbos87 9y ago

What seems to be playing out on college campuses is in stark contrast to what is playing out inside many employers. Our leadership is getting its feet held to the fire to find more qualified female candidates for exec roles, which are dominated by white men. Is this likely to equalize itself over time?

MollyR 9y ago
My personal theory probably not. Its looks like small but significant percentage of men are extraordinarily sensitive to economic advantages of different activities. I think the bitcoin billionaires and millionaires are mostly men, and good evidence of something changing.

inamberclad 9y ago

> Men may also feel they have more alternatives to college than girls do. “For a lot of my [male] high school friends, it was just too much time,” said Smith, the orientation leader at Carlow. “They were ready to get out. As opposed to a four-year college, they could go to an 18-month [vocational-education] program and make just as much money.” Seems like something that HN loves to push.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

drablyechoes 9y ago

Perhaps it is the case that women are just smarter and find education more appealing than their male peers, in aggregate. Access to higher education for women is still a relatively new thing, historically speaking, so why is it even surprising that the demographics continue to change?

benlorenzetti 9y ago

The articles' subtitle: >> Males are enrolling in higher education at alarmingly low rates, and some colleges are working hard to reverse the trend. This may not be alarming depending on how you weigh the value added by college. Conference of credentials by/for authority vs competence and independence with work.

mesozoic 9y ago

Finally getting that diversity they wanted!