"After reading numerous articles in numerous publications on the gender gap “crisis” in college attendance, Texas Woman’s University Chancellor Carine Feyten was compelled to put the issue in perspective. Her op-ed, “The Boys are Doing Just Fine,” was originally published in the Chronicle of Higher Education.
In the op-ed, Feyten notes that this growing college enrollment gap between men and women is not because men are enrolling less, but because women are enrolling more. She further argues the real “crisis” is what’s happening to women in the workforce. In 2020, women earned 84 percent of what men earned—a figure that has remained relatively flat for the past 15 years. The lifetime earnings gap between a man with a bachelor’s degree and a woman with the same educational attainment is 43 percent. Even with a decline in men attending college, men still outnumber women in skilled occupations and positions of leadership, particularly at the highest levels. Longstanding economic structures push women to earn a college degree just to have a chance at a livable wage. Feyten’s opinion piece laid bare the real “crisis”—the longstanding imbalance in earnings, with or without a degree, between men and women.
The op-ed caused quite a stir with responding letters to the editor and a subsequent competing perspective published in Inside Higher Education."
From the Judges
Powerful story that tackles a real-life imbalance that often feels overlooked by society. Through her lived experience, and strong data, the author does an excellent job of showing the reader rather than telling them.
