The number of men enrolled in higher education has dwindled to 44 percent since 1992, Time magazine reported last week, and Boston University’s enrollment statistics seem to parallel that trend.
Current enrollment at BU includes 9,497 full-time female undergraduates compared to 6,376 full-time male undergraduates. But contrary to an investigation in which Time found that some schools are actively recruiting men to their campuses, BU has not taken action to attract more men, according to University officials.
Maya Zelazo, a junior in the College of Arts and Sciences, agreed with that policy.
“They should accept people by merit, and if girls have more merit than guys do, than they should be the ones accepted,” she said.
Some BU women said the female majority on campus impacts their social lives.
“I’m used to having guy friends from high school, and here I don’t and I guess it is because there are not so many around,” Tania Dumicic, a Sargent College of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences senior.
“I have a class for my major [Rehabilitation Counseling and Human Services] where there are no boys at all and it does make it more comfortable to participate,” she added.
As Time reported, many factors have contributed to the gender gap, including higher college enrollment by older women, an increasing trend toward technical jobs that do not require college degrees, and the decreasing number of male teachers that serve as role models.
In an effort to close the gender gap, some smaller liberal arts colleges have begun recruiting males, creating one of the most controversial issues in college admissions today.
One school that has begun recruiting men is Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pa. Meghan McVeigh, a senior at Dickinson, criticized the policy.
“I feel that this detrimentally affects male/female interaction within the classroom as well as with ‘team work’ interaction,” she said.
None of the other major Boston colleges, including the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard University, Boston College and Northeastern University share the gender trend. At all of those schools, men’s enrollment is equal to or higher than women’s enrollment.
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