Dearth of Men Felt at Colleges Across the Country

Berkeley High School senior Chris Carlisle isn't planning to apply to UC Berkeley this year. In fact, he's not sending any applications to college.

"I want to be a firefighter," Carlisle says. "I just ain't thought about college."

Carlisle's decision reflects a growing national trend-fewer men are choosing to go to college, and now make up just under 44 percent of students enrolled in degree-granting institutions across the country.

With this phenomenon, UC Berkeley's gender gap has reversed. At 54 percent of the college-age student body, women outnumber men in every ethnic group except among whites.

"It's pretty cool," says junior sociology major Maritza Barajas. "Before, women experienced so many restrictions when it came to higher education. Now we're less dependent on men economically."

But among minorities, the gap is extreme. Of about 1,200 black students on campus this fall, nearly 800 are women. Asian-American females outnumber Asian-American males by more than 1,000.

Such an unbalanced increase in female presence on college campuses may not be altogether healthy, some experts say.

"Sociologically, it throws things way out of balance," says Lynda Tredway, an instructor at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Education, who has published work on the minority achievement gap.

Tredway says the college gender gap stems from racial perceptions and low K-12 performance for males. From the onset of their school experience, the odds are against black and Latino boys, she says.

"There's a racial dimension in the classroom that is unavoidable," Tredway says. "Teachers ‘adultify' the behavior of African-American and Hispanic males. They are not seen as just boys, but feared as men."

This mentality often translates into higher suspension rates for those boys, Tredway says, which in turn increases the likelihood of dropouts.

Blacks in particular are suspended from school more often than students in other ethnic groups, according to the National Center for Education Studies.

And statewide, dropout rates for black male high school seniors are more than three times higher than for Asian-American males, according to the California Department of Education.

Few of those black and Latino males who stay in school even take all courses required for UC entrance. Last year, more than twice as many Asian-American male graduates completed the required courses as compared to black and Latino students, according to the department.

The trend of low K-12 performance for boys carries over into college applications. Tens of thousands more female than male high school students took the SATs last fall in California.

Last year, thousands more women applied to UC Berkeley than men. Women made up three-quarters of all Latino applicants to UC Berkeley. Black female applicants outnumbered males by more than 400.

Black males sometimes have difficulty picturing themselves in college when they do not see others there already, says Justin Martin, a junior social welfare major.

Martin is a member of 100 College Black Men, which has brought black males from Berkeley High to UC Berkeley for tours and workshops.

"When they get here they have a lot of interest," Martin says. "They see that a lot of the obstacles they face are the same as what we're going through. The struggle is the same."

While women nationwide have found ways around long-standing race and class barriers, studies suggest such obstacles are still holding men back.

And although low performance in high school may explain the small number of black and Latino male college applicants, it remains unclear why a gender gap exists among Asian Americans, experts say.

Theories about why some minority males perform poorly in school are as abundant as the solutions offered, says Lisa Kala, a lecturer in the Graduate School of Education.

They're so plentiful, Kala's cabinet drawer is stuffed with minority achievement studies.

"The issue is not one-sided," Kala says. "Students who are failing have to take responsibility. And we need to think of better ways to foster their human potential. They are falling through the cracks."

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