The disappearing male, In College Classrooms, Men are Missing

IN THE 1990's, I taught for six years at a small liberal arts college in Spokane, Wash. In my third year, I started noticing something that was happening right in front of me. There were more young women in my classes than young men, and on average, they were getting better grades than the guys.

Many of the young men stared blankly at me as I lectured. They didn't take notes as well as the young women. They didn't seem to care as much about what I taught - literature, writing and psychology. They were bright kids, but many of their faces said, "Sitting here, listening, staring at these words - this is not really who I am."

That was a decade ago, but just last month, I spoke with an administrator at Howard University in Washington, D.C. He told me that what I observed a decade ago has become one of the "biggest agenda items" at Howard. "We are having trouble recruiting and retaining male students," he said. "We are at about a 2-to-1 ratio, women to men."

Howard is not alone. Colleges and universities across the country are grappling with the case of the mysteriously vanishing male. Where men once dominated, they now make up no more than 43 percent of students at American institutions of higher learning, according to 2003 statistics, and this downward trend shows every sign of continuing unabated. If we don't reverse it soon, we will gradually diminish the male identity, and thus the productivity and the mission, of the next generation of young men, and all the ones that follow.

The trend of females overtaking males in college was initially measured in 1978. Yet despite the well-documented disappearance of ever more young men from college campuses, we have yet to fully react to what has become a crisis. Largely, that is because of cultural perceptions about males and their societal role. Many times a week, a reporter or other media person will ask me: "Why should we care so much about boys when men still run everything?"

It's a fair and logical question, but what it really reflects is that our culture is still caught up in old industrial images. We still see thousands of men who succeed quite well in the professional world and in industry - men who get elected president, who own software companies, who make six figures selling cars. We see the Bill Gateses and John Robertses and George Bushes - and so we're not as concerned as we ought to be about the millions of young men who are floundering or lost.

But they're there: The young men who are working in the lowest-level (and most dangerous) jobs instead of going to college. Who are sitting in prison instead of going to college. Who are staying out of the long-term marriage pool because they have little to offer to young women. Who are remaining adolescents, wasting years of their lives playing video games for hours a day, until they're in their 30s, by which time the world has passed many of them by.

Of course, not every male has to go to college to succeed, to be a good husband, to be a good and productive man. But a dismal future lies ahead for large numbers of boys in this generation who will not go to college. Statistics show that a young man who doesn't finish school or go to college in 2005 will likely earn less than half what a college graduate earns. He'll be three times more likely to be unemployed and more likely to be homeless. He'll be more likely to get divorced, more likely to engage in violence against women, and more likely to engage in crime. He'll be more likely to develop substance abuse problems and to be a greater burden on the economy, statistically, since men who don't attend college pay less in Social Security and other taxes, depend more on government welfare, are more likely to father children out of wedlock, and are more likely not to pay child support.

When I worked as a counselor at a federal prison, I saw these statistics up close. The young men and adult males I worked with were mainly uneducated, had been raised in families that didn't promote education, and had found little of relevance in the schools they had attended. They were passionate people, capable of great love and even possible future success. Many of them told me how much they wanted to get an education. At an intuitive level, they knew how important it was.

Whether in the prison system, in my university classes, or in the schools where I help train teachers, I have noticed a systemic problem with how we teach and mentor boys that I call "industrial schooling," and that I believe is a primary root of our sons' falling behind in school, and quite often in life.

Two hundred years ago, realizing the necessity of schooling millions of kids, we took them off the farms and out of the marketplace and put them in large industrial-size classrooms (one teacher, 25 to 30 kids). For many kids, this system worked - and still works. But from the beginning, there were some for whom it wasn't working very well. Initially, it was girls. It took more than 150 years to get parity for them.

Now we're seeing what's wrong with the system for millions of boys. Beginning in very early grades, the sit-still, read-your-book, raise-your-hand-quietly, don't-learn-by-doing-but-by-taking-notes classroom is a worse fit for more boys than it is for most girls. This was always the case, but we couldn't see it 100 years ago. We didn't have the comparative element of girls at par in classrooms. We taught a lot of our boys and girls separately. We educated children with greater emphasis on certain basic educational principles that kept a lot of boys "in line" - competitive learning was one. And our families were deeply involved in a child's education.

Now, however, the boys who don't fit the classrooms are glaringly clear. Many families are barely involved in their children's education. Girls outperform boys in nearly every academic area. Many of the old principles of education are diminished. In a classroom of 30 kids, about five boys will begin to fail in the first few years of preschool and elementary school. By fifth grade, they will be diagnosed as learning disabled, ADD/ADHD, behaviorally disordered, or "unmotivated." They will no longer do their homework (though they may say they are doing it), they will disrupt class or withdraw from it, they will find a few islands of competence (like video games or computers), and overemphasize those.

Boys have a lot of Huck Finn in them - they don't, on average, learn as well as girls by sitting still, concentrating, multitasking, listening to words. For 20 years, I have been taking brain research into homes and classrooms to show teachers, parents, and others how differently boys and girls learn. Once a person sees a PET or SPECT scan of a boy's brain and a girl's brain, showing the different ways these brains learn, they understand. As one teacher put it to me, "Wow, no wonder we're having so many problems with boys."

Yet every decade the industrial classroom becomes more and more protective of the female learning style and harsher on the male, yielding statistics such as these:

The majority of National Merit scholarships, as well as college academic scholarships, go to girls and young women.

Boys and men constitute the majority of high school dropouts, as high as 80 percent in many cities.

Boys and young men are 1½ years behind girls and young women in reading ability (this gap does not even out in high school, as some have argued; a male reading/writing gap continues into college and the workplace).

Grasping the mismatch between the minds of boys and the industrial classroom is only the first step in understanding the needs of our sons. Lack of fathering and male role models take a heavy toll on boys, as does lack of attachment to many family members (whether grandparents, extended families, moms, or dads). Our sons are becoming very lonely. And even more politically difficult to deal with: The boys-are-privileged-but-the-girls-are-shortchanged emphasis of the last 20 years (an emphasis that I, as a father of two daughters and an advocate of girls, have seen firsthand), has muddied the water for child development in general, pitting funding for girls against funding for boys.

We still barely see the burdens our sons are carrying as we change from an industrial culture to a postindustrial one. We want them to shut up, calm down, and become perfect intimate partners. It doesn't matter too much who boys and men are - what matters is who we think they should be. When I think back to the kind of classroom I created for my college students, I feel regret for the males who dropped out. When I think back to my time working in the prison system, I feel a deep sadness for the present and future generations of boys whom we still have time to save.

And I do think we can save them. I get hundreds of e-mails and letters every week, from parents, teachers, and others who are beginning to realize that we must do for our sons what we did for our daughters in the industrialized schooling system - realize that boys are struggling and need help. These teachers and parents are part of a social movement - a boys' movement that started, I think, about 10 years ago. It's a movement very much powered by individual women — mainly mothers of sons — who say things to me like the e-mailers who wrote, "I don't know anyone who doesn't have a son struggling in school," or, "I thought having a boy would be like having a girl, but when my son was born, I had to rethink things."

We all need to rethink things. We need to stop blaming, suspecting, and overly medicating our boys, as if we can change this guy into the learner we want. When we decide - as we did with our daughters - that there isn't anything inherently wrong with our sons, when we look closely at the system that boys learn in, we will discover these boys again, for all that they are. And maybe we'll see more of them in college again.

We must do for our sons what we did for our daughters in the industrialized schooling system - realize that boys are struggling and need help.

"my hubby went through the nuclear power school in the Navy.."

I took the Radiac Maintenance and Calibration course in the AF at Lowry AFB. I could work at power plants, but I like working outdoors on radar equipment. Everybody that does these specific jobs seems to know everyone else and other companies through contracts and communication. I can move to several states and have a job waiting.

I know somebody who knows somebody who knows somebody else.

That is called a network. It's under the 'radar' screen of any news organization. And those jobs get filled without advertising in some newspaper, unless it's a very big project. Tell your hubby to keep his security clearance. It's worth a lot.

I am in College right now. Being 33, I notice allot more than many of my fellow students. There are a ton of resources put into getting women into science, math and engineering. However, I have not found a single program to get men into education, English or the arts.

Being an engineering major I have notice that there are plenty of women in the freshman and sophmore classes. However by the time it comes to the junior and senior level work they have dwindled to just token numbers. he real problem is that many of the woman that were there at the freshman level took spots from men trying to get into the college of engineering.

I am in College right now. Being 33, I notice allot more than many of my fellow students. There are a ton of resources put into getting women into science, math and engineering. However, I have not found a single program to get men into education, English or the arts.

Being an engineering major I have notice that there are plenty of women in the freshman and sophomore classes. However by the time it comes to the junior and senior level work they have dwindled to just token numbers. he real problem is that many of the woman that were there at the freshman level took spots from men trying to get into the college of engineering.

Being an engineering major I have notice that there are plenty of women in the freshman and sophmore classes. However by the time it comes to the junior and senior level work they have dwindled to just token numbers.

I got my degree as a math major. I have talked to the women who changed their majors to something like English at later re-unions. Almost all of them say that they were more comfortable in classes where they only had to remember what the professor said. They did well when the classes were mostly about remembering laws and principles, but when it came to using those things to solve problems, they didn't like it, and didn't do well.

Yes, I know that's an anecdote, but I think it is often the case that women and girls prefer to be given answers, and men and boys like to find the answers themselves.
Of course, it's not always the case, and I do dislike any system that doesn't allow for individual talents.

plenty of women in the freshman and sophomore classes...

When I got my engineering degree 2 decades ago, the guys in my classes said these women were looking for their 'MRS' degree. I was surprised at some of my fellow women students that couldn't do simple math, but thought they'd try for an engineering degree!

Hang in there - I just read an article in Reader's Digest about how in 2000, 17% of the US degrees were in math, physics, and engineering, while 56% of China's were and that Japan, with a population of half of ours, is producing double the number of engineers. We will desperately be needing your and your fellow classmate's skills to keep our economy going.

I am homeschooling two girls, 11 and 9, and one son, age 6. The difference in temperaments and learning styles is HUGE and I am so glad I can adjust my teaching methods to this. I love the active, smart little boy that my son is and would hate to have this squashed by the ps system, as I know it does to so many. I can tell exactly when my son is ripe for learning and when he NEEDS to be left alone to play or absorb information. HOmeschooling my son has taught me that a big problem for boys (and probably a major source of problems in schools) is that they don't like constantly having to take instruction from and being corrected by women- even at age 5 or 6! I can tell when he is reaching that point with me and then it is time to let up or have dad step in. It seems to be important to let boys be able to show their mastery of a new skill before pounding them with new material that once again makes them feel 'stupid' or inadequate. And when introducing something new, it seems helpful to do it slowly and go back to the 'mastered' skill to bolster their confidence and pride, so that they are more willing to risk doing something that they are not good at. Pride seems to be a big part of the equation- especially in front of women and other girls. If pushed into situations where they feel demeaned in front of other females, they will lash out with behaviors that make them feel more powerful- tuning you out, being aggressive, etc... I think this is what leads to many of the problems with boys in school.

Yes, some subjects are highly degraded. My college educated nephew (smart guy), didn't have a clue where Singapore was. I told him it was the tip of the Malay peninsula. Did my nephew know where that was I inquired? I think it is near Korea he guessed. That exchange revealed his profound ignorance about so much - geography, history, culture, and the natural and physical sciences.

Good grammar comes from reading I think, lots of reading. That is the only way to develop an ear for the language, and what sounds right, and what does not. Rules of grammar help, but without the ear, I don't think one can write effectively.

This thread drew plenty of "sour grapes" posts but very little in the way of analysis of what's happening with male students in college today. In my own experience, just one generation made a crucial difference. I taught many (male) Vietnam vets fresh out of service. They were eager and thoughtful students. I also taught their children--and peers of their children. But most of those were female. The male students were fewer in number and generally lethargic.

The difference? The Vietnam Vets typically had fathers in the home--fathers who had encouraged them to go into the service and who later encouraged (or inspired) them in seeking a college degree. The Vets' kids often barely knew their dads, who had either divorced their moms or never bothered marrying them. (My college was in the inner city.)

I think my experience of the "gender gap" was typical. So does George Gilder, author of "The Idea of the (Feminized) University" in the current issue of National Review. This is part of what he says:

Disturbing as it is, this pattern is no mystery. Inferior male performance in school is chiefly associated with fatherless families. Among major industrial countries, only Sweden, Norway, and Denmark significantly surpass the U.S. in the female dominance of higher education; these Scandinavian countries also lead in female-headed families. In all of Europe, only Switzerland shows a drastically lower level of fatherlessness, with an 11 percent illegitimacy rate in 2001 as compared with 32 percent in the U.S. and 42 percent in Sweden. And, sure enough, Switzerland displays continued male dominance of higher education, with men constituting around 60 percent of the college-student population.
The ill effects of fatherless families should come as no surprise. Around the globe and throughout human history, mothers left alone have foundered on the challenge of raising and disciplining boys. As I stated in my 1986 book, Men & Marriage, family dissolution in the modern world leads to “a welfare state to take care of the women and children and a police state to handle the teenaged boys.” I might add today that it also entails immigration or outsourcing to do much of society’s work and to support the childless in their old age.

there certainly have been plenty of cases in this country where old boy networks serve to keep women underpaid and under-promoted."

Probably. Just as there have been many cases where women have "slept their way to the top".

Just how big a gov't agency do you want to decide how much people should be paid? Why not just let people quit and get a new job if they don't like the one they have?

One point that's not been made so far is the lack of recess. Boys need a chance to burn off steam every couple hours or so doing physical competitive stuff. Dodgeball or something with winners and losers. If everyone's special then no one is special. Why bother if mediocrity is the best you can aspire to Without recess it becomes torture to sit through all those boring lessons. Through all my schooling the part I remember best is recess. Somehow the knowledge soaked in during classes but recess was the only real reason to go to school.

Good post.

You mis-presume that most men want such an adolescent existence.

This kind of very quickly goes off topic but it's not so much that men want the "play video games all night - hang with friends -get laid when I feel like it with no strings attached" life it's just that unless you're planning to have children (and some men aren't) then getting married is a very high risk investment with a huge downside if it fails.

Feminists have destroyed not only college but marriage for most men. To reverse this we have to repeal no fault divorce and start making marriage mean something again.

Note that I am a Christian and hold a biblical view of what marriage is and should be but even I would be very fearful of recommitting if I didn't want more kids. I'd rather be celibate than lose everything in divorce for no cause. If I'm skittish imagine what a non-Christian would be like.

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