Women lead ranks of degree seekers
by Victor Greto
South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Girls rule
At least in higher education.
While women have been the majority of college stu
dents for about two decades, recent Census figures show
that nationally, their numbers have risen to 56 percent.
In addition, women today earn the majority percentage
of all degrees except doctorates.
In the past few years, more women than men received
bachelor degrees in science-related fields. Even in tra
ditionally male-dominated fields such as engineering,
architecture and mathematics, women cut the gap by as
much as 20 percent from a decade ago.
The reasons for the phenomenon are many, said Lynn
Appleton, a sociologist at Florida Atlantic University
in Boca Raton, Fla. But the more fundamental reasons,
she said, focus on the changing family.
For example, she said, because many contemporary
families feel the need for two incomes, “many women
who may not have prepared themselves for the
workforce 30 years ago now assume they will have to
hold a job.”
Beginning in the 19705, she said, “the opening of no
fault divorce meant Americans could end emotionally
unsatisfying marriages, which created a couple of gen
erations of divorced American women who descended
into near poverty because they held no credentials to
work. Their daughters have vowed this will not happen
to them."
There is no stereotypical woman who attends college.
Stacy Phillips, 35, decided to change her life after
giving birth to her daughter Julia more than six years
ago.
Now living with her mother in Plantation. Fla., the
recently divorced woman decided she would go to
FAU’s main campus in Boca Raton full-time and earn
the credits to become a middle school teach.er.
Because, she said, “I would then get the same days
off as Julia, the same vacations, including the whole
summer.
But she didn't just plunge into it.
After Julia’s birth in November 1995, she worked an
other year full time as a claims adjuster, saving more
than $lO,OOO in anticipation of the dry years ahead.
She now' has only a spring and summer semester to
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“I would have never gone back to school if I didn’t
have Julia,” Phillips said.
The trend has evolved into a social phenomenon, for
while there are slightly more women than men in the
U.S., according to the 2000 Census, there are more men
than women under the age of 25.
Though there are differences among racial
and ethnic groups as to who is more likely to
attend college - whites, for example, are more
likely to attend than blacks - the women in
each group outnumber the men in attendance.
Tom Mortenson, a public policy analyst for
the Center for the Study of Opportunity in
Higher Education in Washington, attributes
the shift to the country’s century-long evo
lution from an industrial to a service
economy, which, he said, favors women.
The beginning of the decline in male par
ticipation in college goes back to the late 19th
century, when men dominated all aspects of
higher education. What stopped the rates
from going down even faster were what
Mortenson calls “two artificial spikes,” the
1944 GI Bill, which financially encouraged
returning World War II veterans to go to
school, and the Vietnam-era law that ex
empted male college students from the draft.
In South Florida today, Appleton said, “lots
of our working-class male students are go
ing straight into the workforce and their sis
ters are saying, ‘What kind of job can I get?
Checkout line? Maid?’ They’re not good op
tions, so they go to the. community college,
then on to the university.”
Male students are adapting to the situation,
said Marquise Kiffin, 21, a senior majoring
in education at the private Nova Southeast
ern Llniversity in Davie, Fla.
“I feel as if it impacted me in a positive
matter," Kiffin said. “You kind of understand
how (women) think. You really become
aware of what you’re saying and how you re
saying it.”
Not only that, Kiffin said, “I actually care
about hurting their feelings.” But don’t think
college has become a single man’s delight.
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“It’s easier in the sense there are a lot of women to
choose from,” he said, “but (NSU) being a small school,
people talk. As far as dating, I think (the uneven ratio)
does play a role, but more for the women. I always hear
the women complaining because there aren’t enough
Stacy Phillips, an English major at Florida Atlantic University, is shown
with her daughter Julia. Phillips decided at the age of 35 to begin
working on her teaching degree.
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guys.”
The one thing that seems to have stayed the same,
however, is the vast difference in pay between men and
women. Mean income for women college graduates is
nearly half the income of their male counterparts.
The prospects for salaries rising remains grim, said
William Dorfman, a professor of psy
chology at NSU, who has seen
women increasingly dominate the
graduate student body at the college.
The reasons focus on the
number of roles women try to fulfill,
and the law of supply and demand,
he said.
“The ‘feminization’ of those
professions leads to lower pay across
the board,” Dorfman said.
Historically, he said, female
dominated fields such as teaching
and nursing pay comparatively low.
As more women enter professions
such as psychology and medicine,
expect the salaries to go down and
more men leave those professions.
“A lot of women graduate
from our program,” Dorfman said,
“get married, work in the profession
for a year or two, then leave the full
time career to have a baby. They may
come back into it down the road, but
the demands of family, marriage and
children put them at a disadvantage
for negotiation for higher salaries -
and schools and (law) firms can take
advantage of it.”
engineering, computers, even ac
counting, because the salaries are still
high, he said.
“Women have moved into
the professions, but all the time
they’ve done it, they’ve had to main
tain the nurturers’ role,” Dorfman
said, “and the way to survive is to do
it part-time. As soon as you do that,
you can’t demand the same kinds of
salaries.”
Page 7
Men go into fields such as