Dear Commons Community,

There was an excellent guest editorial in yesterday’s New York Daily News that presented the issue of enrollment of males in our nation’s colleges and universities.    The editorial was written by Lorenzo Esters and Richard Whitmire.   Esters is vice president for Access and the Advancement of Public Black Universities at the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities. Whitmire, immediate past president of the National Education Writers Association, is the author of “Why Boys Fail.”  Among the points made are that male enrollments in higher education are increasing but they are doing so at a slower rate than female enrollments. “For every male college student today, there are nearly 1.39 females. Between 1993 and 2007, the percentage of males enrolled in higher education dropped from 45% to 43% – and over the next 11 years, the percentage of males is expected to drop an additional 2 percentage points.”   College enrollment figures are substantively lower for black males and poor white males.  The article goes on to discuss that the gap actually begins as early as ninth grade and only worsens in high school and college.

Tony

The full piece can be found at: http://www.nydailynews.com/opinions/2010/05/17/2010-05-17_where_the_boys_arent_college.html