The trend of fewer males in college is worrisome to Tom Mortenson, senior scholar at the Pell Institute for the Study of Opportunity in Higher Education. Mortenson, a higher education policy analyst since 1970, has studied trends in gender distribution in higher education for the past 25 years.
With the United States and, specifically Indiana losing manufacturing and other traditionally male jobs, young men are "no longer guaranteed success the way their fathers and grandfathers were," he says. According to Mortenson, traditionally held male jobs have been lost in the capitalization of agriculture and globalization of manufacturing.
"The tragedy becomes apparent to boys when it is almost too late to fix it," he says. "The growing industrial sectors of the U.S. economy are all service industries that require substantial post-secondary education investments. The girls get it and boys don't."
Around adolescence, boys begin turning away from schooling, disengaging from the learning process, Mortenson says.
"I can see the issue and I know why it's a problem for young men," he says. "But how to fix the imbalance is a lot harder."
--Associated Press
© Copyright 2005 by DiverseEducation.com
