Pearl - August 10, 2026


Why Are So Few Men Going To College Reaction


Episode Stats


Length

10 minutes

Words per minute

180.96

Word count

1,978

Sentence count

39

Harmful content

Misogyny

9

sentences flagged

Hate speech

17

sentences flagged


Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 the largest disparities here are observed among black students black women are 12 percentage 0.86
00:00:04.320 points more likely to graduate within six years than black men yeah we could have guessed that
00:00:10.160 come on guys what's up guys welcome to my reaction series um today we're going to be reacting to why
00:00:15.680 men are disappearing from college campuses but before i start there is a link in the description
00:00:21.040 where you can actually sign up for a private dinner to hang out with me um it's the audacity
00:00:27.680 network.com slash events it's like the second tab to hit the events page you might want to pull up
00:00:32.080 your computer for it um also if you just want more information on it there's a google form and we'll
00:00:37.440 text and email you more information all right let's see why the men are leaving college probably
00:00:42.320 because the answer is always because women are driving them out last several decades from being
00:00:46.080 insufferable it's multiple gender gaps have emerged or it's too much money college enroll 1.00
00:00:50.400 it's not useful you know i mean there's so many so many things and graduation rates across
00:00:55.280 institutions and degree types. In 2021, men received 42% of bachelor's degrees awarded in
00:01:01.100 the United States, the lowest male share on record and approximately equal to the 43% of
00:01:06.120 bachelor's degrees awarded to women in 1970. Women are 11 percentage points more likely to
00:01:11.560 graduate from a four-year institution in four years and seven percentage points more likely 0.90
00:01:15.480 to graduate within. Yeah, okay, but notice how they're talking about graduating college and not
00:01:20.180 producing product. It's always degrees, parties, participation trophies. It's never inventions,
00:01:27.580 infrastructure, usefulness. Six, these disparities persist across racial groups and are highest for
00:01:34.240 Black and Hispanic students. Though the trends are not new, the continued growth of these
00:01:38.620 disparities pose significant questions for administrators, policymakers, and students.
00:01:50.500 Let's examine the following male share of degree earners.
00:01:55.780 As figure one shows, the percentage of bachelor's degrees conferred to men in 2021 was 42%,
00:02:01.300 down from 57% in 1970. There have been even steeper declines at other degree levels.
00:02:06.980 The male share could be lower because men are less likely to enroll in college, or because they are
00:02:10.980 less likely to finish college after enrolling, or both. Here we examine trends at both enrollment
00:02:15.540 and completion. We show that the male share of students enrolling in college has declined
00:02:19.300 dramatically and that the male completion rates are persistently lowered combine these two gender
00:02:23.940 gaps in both enrollment but what are the majors of the men and the women they're always going to
00:02:28.660 phrase it in a way that makes men look incompetent but usually if you go to stem men are still
00:02:34.260 outpacing women in terms of degrees that matter completion causes a lower male share of degrees
00:02:39.540 awarded these patterns hold across racial groups in most institution types
00:02:43.540 many students enroll in college straight from high school but there's a gender gap in rates
00:02:52.140 of immediate enrollment as figure two shows in 2022 57 percent of male high school graduates
00:02:57.700 enrolled in college compared to 66 percent of their female counterparts while the percent of
00:03:02.380 women immediately enrolling in college has seen a steady increase only recently stabilizing the
00:03:07.700 percentage of men enrolling in college has been more stagnant the rate of immediate college
00:03:11.660 enrollment for men is the same in 2022 as it was in 1964, rates also fell sharply in 2021,
00:03:17.660 resulting in the widest gender gap in immediate enrollment since 1968.
00:03:25.980 Of course, not all college students enroll directly from high school. It could be that
00:03:29.660 men enroll at a similar rate just a few years later, but they do not. Overall enrollment rates
00:03:34.860 are still much lower for men. Figure 3 shows the share of men and women at age 18 to 24 who
00:03:40.220 enrolled in college for the whole population and for the four largest racial and ethnic categories
00:03:45.100 there are wide race gaps in college enrollment but young men are less likely to be in college 0.98
00:03:49.020 than young women in every racial group the size of the gap does vary right but it's always shaming
00:03:55.420 as to say it's not logical for them not to be in college it's never why aren't women
00:04:03.020 in the infrastructure jobs why aren't women inventing anything you know i could do a whole 1.00
00:04:07.260 list of why aren't women why aren't women raising their children why are women raising criminals 1.00
00:04:12.860 why are women being terrible people why did women abort an eighth of the world population 0.97
00:04:17.580 you know we can play this game we can play this game however notably hispanic men lag behind 0.98
00:04:24.540 hispanic women by 12 percentage points in contrast asian students have both high rates of enrollment
00:04:29.900 in the smallest gender gap with men failing women by only six percentage points. 0.81
00:04:38.860 Given these trends in college enrollment rates, it is not surprising that there are more women
00:04:43.100 than men on campuses. In 2021, men accounted for 42 percent of total undergraduate enrollment.
00:04:49.020 The male share is slightly higher among full-time students at 44 percent and slightly lower among
00:04:53.420 part-time students at 40 percent. Mirroring the trend for degree conferral, the gender gap in
00:04:58.860 college enrollment first emerged in the 80s and has widened steadily since figure four shows the
00:05:04.140 absolute number of male and female students enrolled in four see they put four-year degrees 0.92
00:05:07.980 what about stem why aren't women getting stem degrees why are women getting retarded degrees 0.89
00:05:13.500 i mean that that's what's happening what's happening is the price is going up because 0.93
00:05:17.100 women will buy anything and anything women buy the price just goes up forever right so we don't
00:05:21.100 look at prices we don't think about it we don't have budgets and then um men look at the price 1.00
00:05:26.540 and they say that's not worth it and do the logical thing which is to stop going where women 0.72
00:05:31.740 just keep going no matter how much debt and uselessness the uselessness we do a year and 0.83
00:05:37.900 two-year institutions in 2021 there were 2.4 million fewer men than women pursuing undergraduate
00:05:43.580 degrees with the prox and you know what college is so great for men dating because when in your 0.86
00:05:48.380 life are you going to be around 18 to 25 year old hot poo nanny you know like when else in your life 0.93
00:05:55.580 are you going to be around that many young hot women the 8.9 million women compared to 6.5 million 0.84
00:06:01.260 men there are about as many men on college campuses now as there were 15 years ago as shown in figure
00:06:06.860 four the gender gap is largely the result of stagnating male enrollment at four-year institutions
00:06:12.140 enrollment at two-year institutions is on the decline for both men and women while the enrollment
00:06:15.980 of women at four-year institutions continues to rise because again women care about popularity 0.84
00:06:20.940 and status and banging the hottest guys possible so um and women don't care how much it'll cost to 0.51
00:06:27.100 do that contrast the numbers for men and fun so if they're like oh we can have fun in college
00:06:31.980 that's what we do and have leveled off suggesting a concerning trend
00:06:35.580 women appear to be shifting up while men appear to be shifting out
00:06:41.420 what's up guys doing this job we constantly face demonetization harassment and people interfering
00:06:46.860 with the interviews. Unfortunately this drives up the cost. I was demonetized for two years and we
00:06:53.280 need your help to fundraise for the channel. There is a link in the description where you can actually
00:06:58.320 donate directly to me and my platform or you can buy a ticket to our private event which is capped
00:07:05.440 at 10 to 20 people and it's a private dinner where you get to hang out with me, Doug MPA and a few
00:07:11.320 other friends of the channel. I can't wait to see you guys there and I'll see you next time.
00:07:16.860 Men not only enter college at lower rates, but they are also less likely to complete
00:07:21.920 their course of study.
00:07:22.920 It might be expected that with fewer male students, those who do attend are more likely
00:07:27.420 to succeed due to selection effects, but that is not born out of the data.
00:07:32.000 The gender graduation gap has been consistent for the last 20 years across all standard
00:07:36.360 time to graduation metrics and is evident in nearly all types of higher education institutions.
00:07:41.460 Figure 5 shows the on-time graduation rates for men and women at four-year institutions
00:07:45.660 in two-year institutions since the entering class of 1996 while completion rates for both genders
00:07:51.260 have increased substantially over the last 20 years the gap between male and female completion
00:07:55.740 has been relatively steady at four-year institutions there was a seven percentage
00:07:59.820 point gap in six-year completion rates for the cohort entering in 2016 compared to a six percentage
00:08:05.820 point gap for the 1996 cohort for both genders completion rates are at the highest at private
00:08:12.060 nonprofit institutions, followed by public institutions, and trails far behind by private
00:08:17.100 for-profits. The size of the gap is similar across institution types. Private for-profits are an
00:08:22.300 exception to the rule. This is the only subsample of data we examine where outcomes are better for
00:08:26.700 men than for women. Just as with enrollment, the gender gaps and completion rates can be seen across
00:08:32.220 racial groups, albeit with distinct patterns. The large disparities here are observed among
00:08:37.340 black students black women are 12 percentage points more likely to graduate within six years 0.96
00:08:41.820 than black men yeah i mean we could have guessed that come on guys however it's important to note
00:08:47.340 that the completion rates of black women are still lower than those of men from all other
00:08:51.500 racial groups in other words the race gaps are wider than the gender gaps interestingly
00:08:57.020 hispanic students who have the lowest enrollment rates exhibit relatively higher levels of
00:09:01.420 completion hinting at a potential selection effect overall these nuanced patterns suggest
00:09:06.140 that a gender and race sensitive approach to designing and targeting interventions is needed
00:09:11.180 okay it's it's never it's always white men are doing too well so we need to help everybody else
00:09:17.020 why why does it you know white men when they if they were to lag behind which they never do
00:09:23.580 they never get these special programs it's always for women and minorities the relative
00:09:27.660 underperformance of men in higher education is a significant challenge for the sector
00:09:31.900 men benefit just as women do from a college degree and post-secondary education remains
00:09:36.220 an important potential route right but i mean maybe it benefits them but women are still the 0.61
00:09:41.100 ones going into debt and can't retire because they have so much college debt mobility this 0.91
00:09:47.180 does not mean of course that alternatives to college are not worthy of equal attention
00:09:50.700 especially given that they may be more suitable for many young men there's also much more work
00:09:55.020 to do to understand the different patterns of male higher education achievement this includes
00:09:59.260 exploring the decline in the share of men pursuing HEAL so that's health education administration
00:10:04.140 and literacy majors and achievement across different kinds of institutions of higher
00:10:08.060 education including community colleges regional public universities public flagships liberal art
00:10:13.500 colleges and graduate schools the trends described in this brief demand urgent attention from
00:10:19.100 policy makers and from higher education institutions themselves but right now we don't have a good
00:10:24.380 understanding of what the best strategies to reverse these trends would be uh to lower the
00:10:31.260 price and provide more value i mean that that's pretty much it price lower provide more value
00:10:36.860 um and then white guys will come back all right guys um i'd love to meet you at one of our private
00:10:42.140 event so please in the comments click the link i love you thanks for watching i'll see you next time