Why Is the Generation Gap Growing?

While girls and women have achieved substantial progress in the last 30 years throughout the K-12 and higher education systems, boys and men have been losing ground at every point along the way, maintains Thomas G. Mortenson, a senior scholar at the Center for the Study of Opportunity in Higher Education at the Council for Opportunity in Education, Washington, D.C. "We are very far short of a national consensus that this is a serious social problem and something needs to be done about it." In his article, "Where Are the Boys?: The Growing Gender Gap in Higher Education," in The College Board Review, he notes trends which underscore just how serious and pervasive the problem is. "Females are moving forward while males are not," he argues. "These trends are broad, long, and deep." Among them:

* The percentage of males awarded bachelor's degrees--56.9% in 1970--will drop to 41.7% by 2008, the National Center for Education Statistics predicts.

* The redistribution of bachelor's degrees by sex has occurred in all 50 states, all racial/ethnic categories, public and private colleges and universities, all fields of study, and associate and master's degree programs. (Males are still ahead in earned doctorates and...