Women attending Syracuse University may notice the abundance of estrogen in the air on the Hill these days.

This is because a growing national trend indicates more women than men are currently attending undergraduate college. And while initially this may seem like a field of roses for women, it really isn’t as wonderful as it seems. While there is an increase in overall college attendance, there are still stark differences in gender ratios among the various subject areas on campus.

According to the Center for Policy Analysis, American Council on Education 2005, women earn 57.4 percent of the bachelor’s degrees nationwide, while 42.6 percent are earned by men.

This ratio has done almost a complete turnaround in the past three decades. The College Board Review reported in 1999 that in 1970, the numbers were reverse with 56.9 percent of bachelor’s degrees earned by men and 43.1 percent by women.

SU continues to be in tune with the national average. This year, 56 percent of all of SU’s undergraduate students are women, said Susan Donovan, dean of admissions. However, the change at SU has been gradual.

‘While women have increased in the population (at SU), it hasn’t been dramatic,’ Donovan said. ‘We’ve always had our fair share of women.’

While in 1970, 46 percent of undergraduates were women, this ratio balanced out in the early 1990s and reached a plateau for five years when the ratio hovered around 50-50, Donovan said.

She said SU has no specific admissions policies or procedures on gender and isn’t doing anything ‘active,’ but did say it is taken into consideration.

‘SU is sensitive to gender,’ she said.

In 2005, 55.3 percent of the applications received by the university were from female students, 55.8 percent of the students admitted were women and 56.9 percent of the students who actually enrolled were women, Donovan said.

‘We’re going to continue to admit the best people into the university,’ she said.

Nationwide, women also earn 59 percent of master’s degrees, according to the Center for Policy Analysis, American Council on Education 2005. Even with an increased number of women receiving master’s degrees, men still receive 54 percent of doctorates, according to ‘Trends in Educational Equity for Girls & Women’ National Center for Education Statistics, Office of Educational Research and Improvement, U.S. Department of Education, 2000.

But Linda Alcoff, chair of the women’s studies department at SU, said while the increase in women in undergraduate college is a good thing, there is still more to be seen under the surface of this issue.

‘The gross number of women in college does not indicate equal opportunity in every area of higher education,’ Alcoff said.

Nationally, men outnumber women in engineering, business, law and medicine. According to a U.S News and World Report in 2002, 85 percent of engineering undergraduates, 70 percent of business undergraduates, 56 percent of law and 55 percent of medicine undergraduates were men.

Men at SU outnumber women in engineering with 82 percent of freshmen being men. In information studies, 62 percent are men and 59 percent of management freshmen are men, Donovan said.

But at some schools and colleges at SU, women hold the majority in numbers. In retail marketing, 91 percent of freshmen are women, Donovan said. In the School of Education, 82 percent of freshmen are female.

However, the disparity shows men still prevail in the disciplines traditionally reserved for men, which also happen to be higher-paying professions.

‘Women need a college degree to get paid what a male high school dropout gets,’ Alcoff said.

Donovan echoed a similar sentiment regarding women’s socio-economic status.

‘Girls are smart,’ she said. ‘They see education as the pathway to get out of the situation they are in.’

The underlying cause of this gender gap nationwide is often attributed to what some identify as problems in the education system itself.

Evidence of this can be seen in the scores of females on the SAT. Women score 44 points lower on the SAT than men even though they earn higher college grades, according to College-Bound Seniors 2004, a report put out by The College Board.

But Alcoff attributes this disparity in test scores to stigmas surrounding the test. She said the idea that women are not as good at mathematics as men, which is socialized in society, gets in women’s heads right before the test.

‘When women do non-traditional things, we are very self-conscious,’ she said.

This heightened level of anxiety, Alcoff said, decreases women’s performance on the test.

But Alcoff said she sees a problem with the test itself.

She pointed out the SAT is only predicting first-year college success and said she feels because of this, SAT scores being given a lot of weight in admissions decisions is problematic.

Going beyond the SAT, Alcoff said she thinks there are fundamental problems with the educational system. She said she would like to see college be universal for everyone and for these institutions to continue going more vocational.

Donovan said she attributes some of the score difference to a family’s economic stability.

‘More women take the test from lower socio-economic backgrounds (than men),’ she said.

This would not enable these women to take SAT preparation courses or buy test preparation materials, automatically skewing the scores in the favor of males.

In 2005, men outnumbered women at all Ivy League schools except Brown University and Columbia University, according to ‘Profiles of American Colleges 2005,’ Barron’s Educational Series, Inc.

But the source of the widening gap in college attendance goes even further back to the earliest stages of education.

The problem lies in men being at a disadvantage in terms of learning style and educational role models, Donovan said.

Catherine Engstrom, a higher education professor at SU, said she believes more women than men enter the education field due to women’s natural caretaker inclination.

‘They want to role model for their own children,’ Engstrom said.

Engstrom said she believes part of the problem also lies in socialization of ideas of education.

‘Society has told these kids for a long time, ‘You’re not a cool guy if you’re smart,” she said.

Engstrom said she sees a problem in the actual structure of education and the ideals it reinforces in addition to the lack of male role models and learning styles that are adapted to males.

‘A lot of high school rewards doing your homework and not talking back,’ she said. ‘Are people being rewarded for what they are learning?’

Of the disparity throughout the various disciplines, Engstrom said people are socialized to be inclined toward certain areas over others.

‘Society still pushes norms of traditional roles,’ she said.

Despite this, Engstrom said she sees clear advantages to a higher percentage of women on college campuses.

‘Women are having more and more potential to have women in student leadership,’ she said.

Published on November 15, 2005 at 12:00 pm