Affirmative action for male students is new ‘dirty little secret’: US colleges ‘worried’

Affirmative action for male students is a new ‘dirty little secret’ because US colleges have become ‘worried’ after men started abandoning their courses in record numbers. 

Even as student bodies become increasingly female however, colleges are afraid to advocate for male students for fear of falling foul of gender politics. 

Instead admissions tutors are offering more places to male applicants than females in an effort to redress skewed gender ratios, the Wall Street Journal reported.  

At Baylor University, for example, admissions this year offered seven percentage points more places to men than women, who make up 60 per cent of undergraduates. 

It comes even as women outstripped men in college applications by 3,805,978 to 2,815,810 in the 2021-22 school year – and with the gap expected to continue widening. 

Affirmative action for male students is a new ‘dirty little secret’ because US colleges have become ‘worried’ after men started abandoning their courses in record numbers (file photo)

At Baylor University (pictured, the college logo at McLane Stadium in Waco, Texas) admissions offered seven percentage points more places to men than women, who make up 60 per cent of undergraduates

Female students are aided by more than 500 centers at schools across the country set up to help women access higher education – but no counterpart exists for men. 

And women are outstripping men in nearly every area of college life – with female students making up 80 of honors graduates from the University of Vermont’s college of arts and sciences. 

Women also made up 59 per cent of student body presidents in 2019-20, with that figure rising to 74 per cent of vice presidents.   

Female students are aided by more than 500 centers at schools across the country set up to help women access higher education – but no counterpart exists for men (file photo, Stanford University logo)

Meanwhile male student suffer from a lack of guidance, according to senior vice president at Junior Achievement USA, Ed Grocholski. 

They also face the increasing belief that college degrees do not pay and are not the only path to success, especially with soaring fees.

But both schools and colleges are unwilling to fork out funding to encourage male students, preferring instead to support historically underrepresented students.

That is because these institutions fear they will be criticized for supporting white men and other groups that have historically had the easiest access to education, according to the department chair for Education Leadership and Policy Analysis at the University of Wisconsin’s School of Education, Jerlando Jackson.