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Okay, I was willing to read this and keep an open mind. But then I got to the fourth paragraph and saw this: " Officials at schools ... are helplessly watching

Okay, I was willing to read this and keep an open mind. But then I got to the fourth paragraph and saw this: " Officials at schools ... are helplessly watching as their campuses become like retirement villages, with a surfeit of women competing for a handful of surviving men." Is the argument here that women only go to college compete for men? And that colleges with more women are "retirement villages" because there aren't enough young men to hook up with? Yep, done with this article.

jiggy2011 13y ago
That might be an extreme interpretation but I don't see it as unlikely that romantic possibilities are a factor for college aged people when choosing a place to spend several years of their lives. Somewhere with a healthy gender mix feel more inviting overall than somewhere with a "bro club" atmosphere (or the opposite of that).
- mabhatter 13y ago
  That's where we have a bit of a double standard of expectations. We expect a girl to go to college ZPRIMARILY to get an MRS. Degree, preferably ABOVE her social standing. When guys go to school we expect WORK first, Mrs. Second. You end up with this situation where women should compete with men fairly, all the time... Except when they want to stop competing and get married. Even then, men are competing for FOOD ON THE TABLE, every day, the next 40 years. Women don't have the same "skin in the game" because Daddy pays for school until hubby marries them.
  - lutusp 13y ago
    > ... women should compete with men fairly, all the time... Except when they want to stop competing and get married. There are a number of problems with your post, but this one stands out. When a woman marries a man, the competition doesn't end, it's just starting. Many women don't plan to marry well, they plan to divorce well. Not judging, just saying. Marriage is not the absence of competition, it's competition taken to a new height -- or do I mean depth?
  - jiggy2011 13y ago
    I don't know if that is necessarily true. At least amongst my peer group, men would place a high weight on non academic factors in university choice. As long as the the university offered a course they wanted and had enough prestige to match their perceived social standing and families expectations factors like distance from home, cost of living , party reputation and where their friends were going were the big factors. From my recollection the women tended to be more conscientious about their studies too and often had added pressure from being the first woman in their immediate family to have attended higher education.
wvenable 13y ago
> Is the argument here that women only go to college compete for men? It doesn't have to mean only. It's not unreasonable to expect that men and women, in the late teens and early twenties, would want to go to college to find people to date. Since when it college just about academics? Given two colleges, one with a healthy balance of genders and one without, I would except most people would rather go to the healthy-balance college.
- russelluresti 13y ago
  Maybe it's just me, then. I know when I was looking at schools I didn't even consider the gender breakdown of the school. It wasn't anywhere near my top concerns - it wasn't even a factor I looked at. Also, I'm not sure how valid the author's statement actually is. I didn't spend a ton of time researching it, but I was curious. Here are the application numbers for two recent years (couldn't find University of North Carolina): Boston College | 38.2k -> 41.7k (+9%) Brandeis University | 7.7k -> 8.9k (+15%) New York University | 38k -> 42.2k (+11%) University of Georgia | 17.4k -> 18k (+3%) Each college continued to receive an increase in applications that was (with the exception of the University of Georgia) on par with other colleges. If people are still applying to those schools, and they aren't seeing decreased applications, doesn't that mean the whole "tipping point" argument where no one will want to go to those schools is invalid?
  - sseveran 13y ago
    Colleges seeing a decrease in enrollment and "no one will want to go" are completely different things. If colleges are worried about it they probably have some market research to back up their worrying. Whether it will end up being true is a completely different story. However even a modest decrease in the percentage of the population going to college would have a huge effect on the money available to universities.
snowwrestler 13y ago
Do you really think 18 year olds (male or female) don't take the social scene into account when deciding which college to attend? In business you have to know your customers. If you're selling to 18 year olds, you can't ignore dating and sex. Especially if you're asking them to spend most of 4 years of their lives and $100,000.
TwiztidK 13y ago
I thought that was a bit off putting too. The school I go to is ~75% male and I've overheard women complaining several times about how they wish there were more girls for them to hang out with. I hear pretty much the same thing from the guys, but that is to be expected. Overall, I think most students would prefer a college to have nearly equal amounts of each gender and any imbalance will cause complaints.

jiggy2011 13y ago

That might be an extreme interpretation but I don't see it as unlikely that romantic possibilities are a factor for college aged people when choosing a place to spend several years of their lives. Somewhere with a healthy gender mix feel more inviting overall than somewhere with a "bro club" atmosphere (or the opposite of that).

mabhatter 13y ago
That's where we have a bit of a double standard of expectations. We expect a girl to go to college ZPRIMARILY to get an MRS. Degree, preferably ABOVE her social standing. When guys go to school we expect WORK first, Mrs. Second. You end up with this situation where women should compete with men fairly, all the time... Except when they want to stop competing and get married. Even then, men are competing for FOOD ON THE TABLE, every day, the next 40 years. Women don't have the same "skin in the game" because Daddy pays for school until hubby marries them.
- lutusp 13y ago
  > ... women should compete with men fairly, all the time... Except when they want to stop competing and get married. There are a number of problems with your post, but this one stands out. When a woman marries a man, the competition doesn't end, it's just starting. Many women don't plan to marry well, they plan to divorce well. Not judging, just saying. Marriage is not the absence of competition, it's competition taken to a new height -- or do I mean depth?
- jiggy2011 13y ago
  I don't know if that is necessarily true. At least amongst my peer group, men would place a high weight on non academic factors in university choice. As long as the the university offered a course they wanted and had enough prestige to match their perceived social standing and families expectations factors like distance from home, cost of living , party reputation and where their friends were going were the big factors. From my recollection the women tended to be more conscientious about their studies too and often had added pressure from being the first woman in their immediate family to have attended higher education.

wvenable 13y ago

> Is the argument here that women only go to college compete for men? It doesn't have to mean only. It's not unreasonable to expect that men and women, in the late teens and early twenties, would want to go to college to find people to date. Since when it college just about academics? Given two colleges, one with a healthy balance of genders and one without, I would except most people would rather go to the healthy-balance college.

russelluresti 13y ago
Maybe it's just me, then. I know when I was looking at schools I didn't even consider the gender breakdown of the school. It wasn't anywhere near my top concerns - it wasn't even a factor I looked at. Also, I'm not sure how valid the author's statement actually is. I didn't spend a ton of time researching it, but I was curious. Here are the application numbers for two recent years (couldn't find University of North Carolina): Boston College | 38.2k -> 41.7k (+9%) Brandeis University | 7.7k -> 8.9k (+15%) New York University | 38k -> 42.2k (+11%) University of Georgia | 17.4k -> 18k (+3%) Each college continued to receive an increase in applications that was (with the exception of the University of Georgia) on par with other colleges. If people are still applying to those schools, and they aren't seeing decreased applications, doesn't that mean the whole "tipping point" argument where no one will want to go to those schools is invalid?
- sseveran 13y ago
  Colleges seeing a decrease in enrollment and "no one will want to go" are completely different things. If colleges are worried about it they probably have some market research to back up their worrying. Whether it will end up being true is a completely different story. However even a modest decrease in the percentage of the population going to college would have a huge effect on the money available to universities.

snowwrestler 13y ago

Do you really think 18 year olds (male or female) don't take the social scene into account when deciding which college to attend? In business you have to know your customers. If you're selling to 18 year olds, you can't ignore dating and sex. Especially if you're asking them to spend most of 4 years of their lives and $100,000.

TwiztidK 13y ago

I thought that was a bit off putting too. The school I go to is ~75% male and I've overheard women complaining several times about how they wish there were more girls for them to hang out with. I hear pretty much the same thing from the guys, but that is to be expected. Overall, I think most students would prefer a college to have nearly equal amounts of each gender and any imbalance will cause complaints.