Ladies and gentlemen, lay down your bets on the mystery blip …
News flash: There’s evidence that the growing gender gap on college campuses has flattened. Maybe.
The authoritative source for the college gender gap is the U.S. Department of Education. They do the hard counts. (Read: Go first to DOE and second to Census, which relies on sampling.) Here’s what the DOE projects for the coming years for gender trends in enrollment and graduation (earning a BA). This may not line up perfectly — the first column is the percent of undergraduates who are female; the second column the percent of BA recipients who are women:
| Percent women | ||
| Undergraduate enrollment | ||
| Year | BA | |
| 2000–01 | 56.1 | 57.3 |
| 2001–02 | 56.2 | 57.4 |
| 2002–03 | 56.6 | 57.5 |
| 2003–04 | 57.0 | 57.5 |
| 2004–05 | 57.1 | 57.4 |
| 2005–06 | 57.2 | 57.5 |
| 2006–07 | 57.5 | 58.1 |
| 2007–08 | 57.6 | 58.2 |
| 2008–09 | 57.7 | 58.4 |
| 2009–10 | 57.8 | 58.5 |
| 2010–11 | 57.9 | 58.7 |
| 2011–12 | 58.1 | 58.9 |
| 2012–13 | 58.3 | 59.1 |
| 2013–14 | 58.6 | 59.4 |
| 2014–15 | 58.9 | 59.8 |
| 2015–16 | 59.2 | 60.2 |
| 2016–17 | 59.5 | 60.7 |
| Projections in Bold | ||
Wait, I’m not done. Here are the actual enrollment numbers for women (not projections, but hard counts):
Notice anything odd? The female percentage for fall 2006 actually dipped a bit, coming in under the prediction. What does this mean? One option is that the campus gender imbalances are stabilizing. Another option: This is just a data aberration and when the new actual enrollment figures come out for the fall of 07 the female numbers will catch up with the projection.
So when does this mystery get solved? Drum roll…next summer.
Patience, I’m told, is a virtue. Not that I would know. Impatient types like me look forward to the latest update of the Projections of Education Statistics, to be released on the Web next Wednesday. I’m cautioned, however, that it may take several years of data to settle this bet.
(My wager: the fall figures prove to be an aberration.)
