Local colleges cope with widening gender gap

By: DAVID GARRICK - Staff Writer | Sunday, June 4, 2006 7:49 PM PDT ∞

NORTH COUNTY ---- College classrooms across the nation were dominated by male students for many decades, prompting schools to recruit females any way they could.

But the tables have turned dramatically in recent years, with women attending college and earning degrees in record numbers while male enrollment has flattened out. Sociologists are calling the shift a "college gender gap" that could dramatically alter the work force of tomorrow.

Female enrollment in American colleges and universities has climbed past 57 percent in recent years, up from 32 percent in 1950, 41 percent in 1970 and 52 percent in 1985.

The gender gap is even more severe at Cal State San Marcos, where the student body is 63.5 percent female and only 36.5 percent male.

The gap is less pronounced at MiraCosta College in Oceanside, where 58 percent of the students are women, and at Palomar College in San Marcos, where 52 percent of the student body is female.

But when you consider the students who transfer from these community colleges to four-year universities, the gender gap re-emerges. Women account for 64 percent of MiraCosta transfer students and 56 percent of Palomar transfers.

Such statistics have prompted officials at all three schools to look for new ways to attract and retain male students.

"We put a male student by himself on the cover of our latest course schedule, which would have been unthinkable just a few years ago," said Julie Hatoff, vice president for instruction at MiraCosta. "But now we won't be criticized for discouraging female students, and it might actually help us with our goal of attracting more males."

Professor Terry Allison, director of women's studies at Cal State San Marcos, said that North County residents should be concerned about the gender gap's impact on businesses in the region.

Some traditionally male jobs might go unfilled, he said, and the region's future business leaders figure to be predominantly female.

Gap widening at CSUSM

Matt Ceppi, director of institutional planning for CSUSM, said the enrollment gender gap at the university is getting steadily wider. The percentage of female students has increased three years in a row, climbing from 62.6 percent in 2002 up to the current 63.5 percent.

Overall numbers for the Cal State University system are 58.7 percent, which is much closer to the national average.

The San Marcos campus has the sixth largest gender gap of the 23 campuses in the system, said Ceppi, partly because academic priorities on the campus include teaching and nursing, which traditionally attract more females.

"If you look at what our core programs are, you see that it makes some sense," said Ceppi, explaining that CSU campuses in San Luis Obispo and Pomona actually have more men than women because they specialize in engineering.

But Bob Sheath, provost for the San Marcos campus, said that women have also started to break into many academic fields previously dominated by men, such as computer science and physics.

"What would have been traditional male interests are now being filled much more by females," said Sheath. "And experts are predicting the trend will continue."

Sheath said one potential solution to the problem would be to diversify the course offerings at colleges and universities, especially striving to find subjects that interest males. But Sheath said the issue must be studied more closely.

"I'm not sure we fully understand the basis of the trend, especially when it comes to the males and why they are not enrolling," said Sheath.

A hot topic

Hatoff said the gender gap has become a hot topic in the academic community, but that no one has fully diagnosed the problem or the solution.

She said that some experts argue that boys are preoccupied with pursuits such as video games, while others blame high schools for alienating boys by forcing them to rein in their personalities. Some others cite a lack of male role models and a tendency for girls to be more goal-oriented.

The experts are equally divided about possible solutions, said Hatoff. Some think recruiting efforts can solve the problem, while others tout affirmative action policies that would give males a leg up in admissions.

Such affirmative action policies, which have been implemented at the University of Georgia and some small liberal arts colleges, would not work at the three schools in North County. State law prohibits community colleges from denying admission to anyone meeting minimum criteria, and CSUSM has a policy of admitting all students who qualify to attend a CSU campus.

But recruiting and outreach could work, school officials say, and they have begun to focus their efforts in those areas.

Recruiting and outreach

MiraCosta, Palomar and CSUSM regularly send recruiters to local high schools and middle schools to encourage Latino and African-American students to consider college.

While the recruiting is not gender-specific, a key goal is increasing the extremely low number of males in these ethnic groups who attend college, said Lisa Montes, an employment counselor at MiraCosta.

Montes also helps organize an annual education conference for 500 Latino boys from North County high schools and middle schools. Young men are encouraged to "stay in the game," finish high school and think about college and alternate careers, said Montes.

"We tell them that nursing isn't just for females, and that they must stay open-minded," said Montes.

The conference, which is called Encuentros, will be held Oct. 14 on the MiraCosta campus.

Ceppi said that all CSU campuses are engaging in similar efforts, explaining that 67.5 percent of Latino students in the 23-campus system are female and that 64.8 percent of African-American students in the system are female.

MiraCosta and CSUSM have not yet developed recruiting strategies for males of other ethnicities, but the MiraCosta board of trustees has asked school officials to propose some solutions to the gender gap.

Different dynamics at Palomar

Berta Cuaron, vice president for instruction at Palomar, said her school has not spent much time focusing on the gender gap. She said Palomar has only a 52 percent to 48 percent gender gap because of its wide breadth of course offerings.

Palomar offers many academic programs that have traditionally been more popular with males. They include woodworking, firefighting and law enforcement. The school also has a large athletic program, including the male-dominated sport of football.

Another factor in Palomar's smaller gender gap is the relatively young age of Palomar's students when compared to MiraCosta, said Hatoff.

When a school has a higher median age, that typically indicates more females, because many women go back to school after a divorce or the conclusion of their child-rearing years, she said.

The median age of MiraCosta students is 27, while the median age at Palomar is 22.

Michelle Barton, director of institutional research at Palomar, said that the student body at Palomar has gotten much younger in just the past few years. The percentage of Palomar students between the ages of 18 and 24 has steadily increased from 49.3 percent in 2001 up to 54.3 percent in 2005.

Long-term impact

Many academics are worried about the long-term impact of the gender gap, said Hatoff, but there are also some short-term consequences.

Surveys show that college-educated young women have begun struggling to find the college-educated boyfriends and husbands they seek, and officials on some campuses have reported problems with social life.

Because the local schools are commuter campuses, the impact is less noticeable, Sheath said.

Ceppi agreed, but he said the social implications could worsen at CSUSM if the trend continues toward a ratio of 70 percent females and 30 percent males.

"If we ever get to that point, we would need to start having some serious discussions about social life on campus," said Ceppi.

Contact staff writer David Garrick at (760) 761-4410 or dgarrick@nctimes.com. To comment, go to nctimes.com.

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