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More about men

I bet you've heard about the enrollment crisis in American colleges and universities, and I bet you think that men are avoiding college in droves, even if you work at a college and see lots of men on campus.  And you wonder, "How can this be?"

Well, it's not exactly the crisis the media are making it out to be.  Here are some views to help you see that.

I downloaded data from IPEDS: Undergraduate and graduate enrollment from 2010 to 2020 (in even years) and visualized it for you, in three views.  The first is simple, showing graduate and undergraduate enrollment at all US post-secondary institutions over time.  You can use the filters to look at a region and/or any combination of ethnicities.

The second view is even cleaner: It shows all enrollment, broken out by gender percentages, and you can see the trend over time.  If you're interested in a region or a Carnegie cluster, or any specific ethnicities, and level (either graduate or undergraduate).

The third view is a little more complex, but before I go there, I hope you will consider supporting the costs of Higher Ed Data Stories if you use it in your work (high school counselors should always consider this site to be guilt-free).  If you show it to clients, or use it with your BOT, I would appreciate support to pay for software and web hosting fees; I don't monetize this blog via ads that I benefit from.  Click here to show your support and keep Higher Ed Data Stories going.

On the third view, you can a) select college types, b) select years, and c) select student types.  Then, the control at lower right will allow you to break out the data in one of several ways, to compare one region to another, or men to women, for instance.  The top chart shows numbers, and the bottom shows percentage change since the first year chosen.

If you think we have a problem with men, I encourage you to use the "Carnegie" filter to cycle through the types.  If you don't want to do this, you can spend a few minutes to see the point on this Twitter thread (a thread is a series of connected tweets).

Do we have a crisis when it comes to men and college enrollment?  Sort of.  Is it unexpected in light of the economy?  I don't think so.  Is it widespread?  (Actually, I think it is contained most--for now--to one sector...and it's not just men who are affected there.)

As always, let me know what you see and what you think.  Thanks for reading.


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