Enrollment decreases gender gap

Men at IU are starting to have more of a presence and receive more degrees than women.

The changing gender gap is happening at universities all across the nation.

While the majority of students on campus usually tend to be women, records of attendance from the Office of the Registrar show that this academic year is the first time since 1982 that male enrollment has exceeded female.

“The change in the gender gap has been minimal, but the numbers do show some movement toward a more balanced ratio of men and women,” said Sarah Gallagher Dvorak, a senior associate director of marketing and communications for Office of Admissions.

Reasons for this change are not specified, but could have an array of possibilities.
“I think there are lots of factors that can contribute to this change,” said Barbara Bunch, a senior research analyst for the registrar’s office. “It could be any number of things from the economy to changing preferences because of the military – a wartime shift.”

Bunch explained that in tough economic times it is more likely for people to gain higher education to find a secure job in an unsteady market. She said this theory could explain the increase in both male and female enrollment.

Female undergraduate enrollment increased 1.5 percent from 2008 to 2009, but male undergraduate enrollment showed an increase nearly three times this amount at 4.4 percent, according to the registrar’s 2009 Fall Enrollment Report.

This applies to graduate admissions as well, with females increasing by 8.1 percent and males increasing with the highest amount of change in all categories at 22.3 percent.

Dvorak said that IU does not adjust its admittance requirements to cause such changes.

“Indiana University Bloomington Office of Admissions does not operate under a quota system,” Dvorak said. “We assess students based solely on their academic successes. If students meet our standard, they will be admitted.”

Bunch also suggested that another possibility for the change could be attributed to the
country’s current time of war. As seen in history of IU admissions, male enrollment has shown highest increases in times of war.

As for academic performance, men are still behind women in the amount of degrees they receive, but the gap between them is rapidly closing.

Throughout the past three academic school years, the gap between women and men in the total amount of all degrees received has decreased from 4.75 percent to 2.61 percent, according to the degree reports on the registrar’s Web site.

Male growth is apparent in other areas as well, such as baccalaureate degrees, master’s and doctoral degrees, where men have actually had slightly higher numbers than women for the past few years.