The male/female gender gap continues to widen at FAMU with female students now making up 67 percent of the FAMU student body, according to data from the FAMU Office of Institutional Research. This is a one percent increase since 2021.
Female students at FAMU now account for 6,143 of the university’s 9,228 student body. According to the data, FAMU enrolled only 3,085 students.
The educational achievements between male and female students has been slowly widening each year, and the pandemic impact on the retention of students only worsened that situation. At FAMU, and other universities, the striking gender imbalance is noticeable.
The National Student Clearinghouse, the US Department of Education, and other organizations, are all consistent in their data suggesting that every year more females are applying to college than males, they enroll and graduate. It also happens at high school level, where the dropout rate in higher among males.
It’s the results of a decades-long trend, in which women have not only closed the historical gender gap in educational attainment, but have surpassed the college-going rates of men. And that trend doesn’t appear to be slowing down.
Experts suggests, that women became a majority of the college going population in 1979, and the trend line has continued rising.
To be fair, women have not seen the full rewards of their rising education levels, as their pay continues to lag behind that of men.
Economic issues
We know that education doesn’t just expand your horizon, it also provides enormous economic power, and college graduates can expect, on average, to earn roughly a million dollars more over their careers than high school graduates, according to studies.
The simple math of more women than men earning college degrees means that many highly educated women will either have to partner with less educated men, or forgo partnerships. If husband and wife ---or partners of any gender--- are going to bring different skills and earning power to their partnership, then they’re likely to redefine separate roles within their relationships.
How modern day families negotiate these new roles and family dynamic remains to be seen.