NYT: Male students in short supply on college campuses

College Life
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<p>Posted in College Life and Parents Forum.</p>

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[quote]
North Carolina, with a student body that is nearly 60 percent female, is just one of many large universities that at times feel eerily like women’s colleges. Women have represented about 57 percent of enrollments at American colleges since at least 2000, according to a recent report by the American Council on Education. Researchers there cite several reasons: women tend to have higher grades; men tend to drop out in disproportionate numbers; and female enrollment skews higher among older students, low-income students, and black and Hispanic students.</p>

<p>In terms of academic advancement, this is hardly the worst news for women — hoist a mug for female achievement. And certainly, women are primarily in college not because they are looking for men, but because they want to earn a degree.</p>

<p>But surrounded by so many other successful women, they often find it harder than expected to find a date on a Friday night.</p>

<p>“My parents think there is something wrong with me because I don’t have a boyfriend, and I don’t hang out with a lot of guys,” said Ms. Andrew, who had a large circle of male friends in high school.</p>

<p>Jayne Dallas, a senior studying advertising who was seated across the table, grumbled that the population of male undergraduates was even smaller when you looked at it as a dating pool. “Out of that 40 percent, there are maybe 20 percent that we would consider, and out of those 20, 10 have girlfriends, so all the girls are fighting over that other 10 percent,” she said.</p>

<p>Needless to say, this puts guys in a position to play the field, and tends to mean that even the ones willing to make a commitment come with storied romantic histories. Rachel Sasser, a senior history major at the table, said that before she and her boyfriend started dating, he had “hooked up with a least five of my friends in my sorority — that I know of.”</p>

<p>These sorts of romantic complications are hardly confined to North Carolina, an academically rigorous school where most students spend more time studying than socializing. The gender imbalance is also pronounced at some private colleges, such as New York University and Lewis & Clark in Portland, Ore., and large public universities in states like California, Florida and Georgia. The College of Charleston, a public liberal arts college in South Carolina, is 66 percent female. Some women at the University of Vermont, with an undergraduate body that is 55 percent female, sardonically refer to their college town, Burlington, as “Girlington.”

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<p>On</a> College Campuses, a Shortage of Men - NYTimes.com</p>

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<p>Nice, this is very good news then. :D</p>

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<p>haha I go to nyu and over 60% of students are women and like a third of guys are gay - so I’d say maybe a quarter of the student body are straight males…it makes me appreciate the boyfriend even more. although he is currently studying abroad in madrid, with my best (female) friend…hmm :confused:
in the science and business programs, it’s more gender-even, but women dominate just about every other program.</p>

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<p>Seems like the opposite to me, then again I’m an engeering and comp sci major so I’m usually the only female present in classes. </p>

<p>However, guys in my class aren’t exactly dating material…</p>

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<p>As a current (male) student at UNC, I have to say that the situation isn’t as drastic as the article makes it appear to be. Heck, half the girls here are still attached to their high school boyfriends anyways.</p>

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<p>Sounds good. Any day now they should be announcing affirmative action for males ;)</p>

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<p>Yes yes yes! Wow, life is becoming better and better. :D</p>

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<p>Men of all races are benefitting from affirmative action in college admissions. </p>

<p>" [C]olleges have been putting a thumb on the scale to favor men in admissions. There just aren’t enough highly qualified men to go around. Determining that colleges practice discrimination doesn’t take much detective work. Higher acceptance rates for men show that colleges dig deeper into their applicant pool to find them. The final proof: Freshman class profiles reveal that the women, with their far higher high-school grade point averages, are more academically qualified than the men. Interviews with admissions officers reveal that the girls’ essays sparkle compared to the boys’, and girls far outshine boys in extracurricular activities as well.</p>

<p>The Commission on Civil Rights cited an example written about in U.S. News & World Report in 2007: Virginia’s University of Richmond was maintaining its rough gender parity in men and women only by accepting women at a rate 13 percentage points lower than the men.</p>

<p>It would be patriotic to report that this discrimination against women is carried out in the national economic interest of boosting graduates in key math and science fields. But, in truth, it’s really a social consideration. Colleges simply want to avoid approaching the dreaded 60-40 female-male ratio. At that point, men start to take advantage of their scarcity and make social life miserable for the women by becoming “players” on the dating scene.</p>

<p>The case to abolish male gender preferences is problematic. Most of those male preferences are granted by private colleges, which consider themselves on solid legal ground. (Some public colleges and universities also grant those preferences at considerable legal risk, an indication of the depth of the fear about broaching that 60-40 threshold"
[Universities</a> admit men with lower qualifications than women in order to maintain the right gender ratio. Why aren’t men prepared for college? - WSJ.com](<a href=“http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703740004574513890645608558.html]Universities”>http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703740004574513890645608558.html)</p>

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<p>yeah well my school is 55 male 45 female</p>

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<p>Seinfeld declared that only 6% of the population is actually “date-able”, and the only reason the other 94% get together is because of alcohol. Sounds like college.</p>

<p>I think the article is too naive about the college dating scene. Women aren’t fighting over men for boyfriends. Most “women” and “men” in college… boys and girls really… are not looking for dates. The dating scene is a far minority to the random-alcohol-induced-hook-up-scene.</p>

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<p>^^^^^</p>

<p>We haven’t declared those to count as “dates” yet? Seems like it would be simpler.</p>

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<p>^^^^^</p>

<p>You really consider a totally random drunken-bout-on-the-couch with some girl as a “date”? I always thought I was more old fashioned, but darn, I must really be out of touch.</p>

<p>I’m a fan of the dating scene (the actual dating scene…). I actually like the whole dog-and-pony show and companionship that comes along with it. Maybe because I am good at it and I am not so good/comfortable with the random hook-up scene.</p>

<p>Again, I can’t believe this, do college students these days really consider random hook-ups to be dates? I’ve only been out of high school for a year now (I work) and we didn’t consider that “dating” in high school. There were only like two dozen couples in my school and everyone knew who they were (out of ~1500 students…). Wasn’t very popular.</p>

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<p>The rising percentage of female enrollment in universities is widely known at this point.</p>

<p>However, when dealing with an entire university as a whole we fail to acknowledge that the sex ratios change drastically from department to department.</p>

<p>As an anecdotal example, the Electrical Engineering and/or Computer Science programs at my school are probably 80% male, and a lot of us are quite desperate to find a girlfriend ;).</p>

<p>More to the point, I was particularly unsettled by this quote:</p>

<p>“Women do not want to get left out in the cold, so they are competing for men on men’s terms,” she wrote. “This results in more casual hook-up encounters that do not end up leading to more serious romantic relationships. Since college women say they generally want ‘something more’ than just a casual hook-up, women end up losing out.” </p>

<p>This type of generalization does a disservice to both sexes. I know more than enough male students who are thinking about marriage at this point, let alone merely ‘long-term’ dating.</p>

<p>As always, these experience depend entirely on the individual and the article should not be taken as universal truth.</p>

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<p>Exact same. My engineering school is 75/25 male-to-female, and my mom is confused as to why I don’t have a boyfriend yet with such a large pool… Just because they’re there doesn’t make them desirable.</p>

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<p>I was going to bring up the Seinfeld thing in the original thread, but the topic is just so stupid, and totally unrelated to anything I care about or that’s going on in my life. 70% of the women at my university look like hogs with mustaches, so of course I’m going to show more interest in the anatomical drawings in a freshman’s biology text, if I had any interest at all anyway. Obesity is definitely a problem in this country, that’s for sure.</p>

<p>Also, it seems from the pics in the original article that these women want to have a relationship (long-term) with a hipster stud-dufus, or bar-fly bad-boy types. Yeah, like that’s going to happen. . .</p>

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<p>Wow, what a dumb article making a big deal out of nothing. It completely exaggerates the small minority of single women that are incredibly desperate to get a boyfriend, when most actually aren’t that skankish and don’t make a big deal about something that is pointless to care about. The journalist is mainly basing their opinions of college behavior on interactions they had with a few college students, a few students out of millions. That’s not very impressive technique, for someone who works for a supposedly “reputable” source a.k.a. the NYTimes.</p>

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<p>My school is 65/35 female/male. A lot of us guys are gay here, too, heh.</p>