The gender disparity in higher education may give a deeper meaning to the phrase made popular by most elementary age girls -- "girls rule and boys drool."

Studies show that women are continuing to outnumber men in post-secondary education. Nationally, women count for about 57 percent of all undergraduates and women earn associates, bachelors and masters degrees at higher rates than men. Only among professional degrees (M.D., J.D.) and earned doctorates (Ph.D., Ed.D.) does the trend change, but even then men only slightly outpace women.

According to an American Council on Education gender equity study conducted in 2006, the gender gap in higher education is widening among certain student populations, but is most striking among white and Hispanic traditional age undergraduates, Women outnumber men by almost two-to-one among the 40 percent of undergraduates who are age 25 or older. However, despite continued growth in the percentage of female undergraduates, the number of bachelor's degrees awarded to men is on the rise, as it is for women.

"Women are making gains in college participation and degree attainment, but their gains have not come at the expense of men," said Jacqueline E. King, director of ACE's Center for Policy Analysis and author of the study. "The number of men enrolled in college has increased, but not fast enough to narrow what is now a 57 percent female majority in total enrollment."

Along with the gender gap, there is also a disparity in the types of degrees attained by men and women. Men outnumber women in the number of degrees awarded in only a few fields -- by a large margin in engineering and computer science, by a sizable but shrinking margin in the physical sciences, by much less in architecture, and hardly at all in business (though more men earn MBAs). Women outpace men in the biological sciences now and in other traditionally women dominated areas such as education.

"Colleges are trying to do more to entice men so that the gender imbalance doesn't become too pronounced," said Dr. Christian K. Anderson, assistant professor of Higher Education at the University of South Carolina, "but some worry this could mean academically qualified women will get passed over for less prepared men."

At the graduate level, men make up 42 percent of total enrollment. Men are still the majority in MBA noneducation doctorate, law and master's of science programs, but women have made strides in several traditionally male fields. Women now have a slight majority in enrollment in medicine (51 percent), and other health science professional programs (53 percent).

At the undergraduate level, the percentage of students who are male has dropped from 44 percent in 1995-96 to 42 percent in 2003-04.

Katherine Chaddock, a USC education professor, noted that women have settled in to attaining degrees in professions that require four years of college and provide a decent living, while men are more attracted to professions that require more education, or none at all.

"Woman have staked out a vast middle ground in education," she said. "Certain professions are still very female dominated. Women gravitate toward them and men away. Teaching, social work, nursing -- those professions provide really good jobs and are fulfilling with four years of college. Men tend to gravitate toward professions that require more than four years -- engineering, mathematics, science, the highest technology of technology and medicine -- or they gravitate toward trades that don't need college degrees yet they have good careers and salary potential.

"It's kind of like the men ended up on one end or the other. Very few want to go for a Ph.D. and others think it's really not worth it and are not interested in middle ground professions."

The real disparity is within minority populations, where the gender gap is growing much faster. According to ACE, among whites a clear female majority has emerged since 1995-96, with the male share of the undergraduates dropping from 49 percent in 1995-96 to 46 percent in 2003-04. This change is due to a decline in the amount of low-income white students who are male, from 48 percent in 1995-95 to 44 percent in 2003-04. Among Hispanics, the percent of students age 24 or younger who are male fell from 45 percent to 43 percent, also due primarily to a drop in the share of low-income students who are male.

African-American males saw some progress with their share of enrollment rising from 37 percent in 1995-96 to 40 percent in 2003-04, but the gender gap is still the largest in this racial group. Orangeburg's South Carolina State University, a historically black university, reported an increase of male freshmen this year. Males represent about half (49 percent) of the incoming class this year. However, the female-to-male ratio is 60-to-40 percent in favor of female students overall.

"The other point that I'm really excited about is the breakdown of males and females is about 50-50 with 49 percent males and 51 percent females," President Dr. Andrew Hugine said at a board of trustees meeting last week. "It says our young men are coming to college."

Asian American men are now at parity with their female peers after having been in the majority in 1995-96.

Dr. Anderson said girls are simply more prepared early on.

"The root cause of the disparity starts in high schools -- or even as early as elementary schools," he said "Girls are doing more to prepare -- they take more college prep courses, for example. And in college they tend to study more, earn better grades, and hold more leadership positions. Among minority populations, it is possible that families do not encourage preparation among boys or if they do it's too little, too late."

Chaddock doesn't see a difference in the way boys and girls are treated, yet the way they communicate with peers and their motivation.

"I don't' think it's any difference on how they are treated," she said. "I think that women use their own peers better; women are a little more groupy and use their peer network better. Someone in a neighborhood that goes to USC and likes it and comes home chatting with a younger sister about it -- women are more prone to bring each other up. ... Sometimes peer pressure can be a good thing.

"Men don't talk to each other. Women think about it more so they talk about it more. ... You know there's not a family out there treating their sons and somehow is sort of encouraging them to do well and the daughter is not. We have gotten past that problem I think and they are treated very equally in terms of motivation. I don't think they equally catch on to it."

The ACE study showed that women earn the majority of both associate and bachelor's degrees and have done so since 1980 at the associates level and 1990 at the bachelor's level. The share of bachelor's degrees earned by women of color has tripled, from 5 percent in 1976-77 to 15 percent in 2003-04. The share of degrees earned by minority men also rose, but not as rapidly, form 6 percent in 1976-77 to 9 percent in 2003-04.

"The gender gap is important and should be addressed by educators and policy makers, but it should not obscure the larger disparities that exist by income and race/ethnicity for students of both genders," added King. "Likewise, The fact that the rate of degree attainment has risen over time for both women and men should remind everyone concerned about male achievement that education is not a zero-sum gain in which a woman's success results in losses for men."

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