Changes in the Demand for College

Fewer boys is not a crisis

Celeste Davis writes,

Loehnen references another book touching on why boys don’t go to college where the author interviews boys and men extensively. Masculinity norms are discussed there. That book is called “Rebels Without a Cause: Reimagining Boys, Ourselves and Our Culture” By Niobe Way.

“According to boys and young men, however, the fault lies entirely with a culture that has gendered and sexualized human capacities, interests, and careers and thus made academic achievement, including going to college, a ‘girlie and gay’ thing. We now think in our modern version of ‘boy’ culture that wanting to follow a career in which one takes care of others or teaches people, are part of a pink-collar economy (i.e., girlie and gay). ‘Be a man and get a real job,’ one that is blue-collar, is the message directed at many young men..” - Niobe Way

More women are going to college. That is not the case for men. Davis suggests that college does not seem masculine enough to attract men.¹

My thoughts are these:

• Too many people go to college. We are reaching too far down in the IQ pool. If men who are not in the upper tier of scholarly ability are looking for alternatives to college, then good for them. I wish women who are not in the upper tier of scholarly ability could do the same.

• Last month, the WSJ ran a story on young people wanting to go to college in the South. Good for them. Young people qualified to go to college should be thinking twice about attending Radical U. We may be headed for an equilibrium in which some colleges become attractive mainly to social justice activists, while the rest become institutions that radicals steer away from. Maybe this will divide the Ivies into those that go back to attracting normal, ambitious students on the one hand and those that lean into being social justice seminaries on the other.

• Gender balance is not as important for colleges as it used to be. Young people are finding their mates on dating apps these days. I’m guessing that men and women still would like college to provide dating opportunities. But the way that colleges are policing sexual conduct is probably putting a damper on collegiate romance.

• There are opportunities to innovate in providing education and experience for people aged 16-20. As entrepreneurs develop these opportunities, the demand for college will decline.

Overall, college is a major cultural sorter right now. Young people with a college education have very different political and cultural beliefs than people who have never gone to college.

Perhaps going forward the cultural distance between college graduates and others will decrease. Maybe there will be convergence toward normal, and away from the edges of sharing your pronouns on the one hand and wearing MAGA hats on the other.

I would bet against college being as salient ten years from now as it is today. In 2034, it may not be as easy to distinguish a recent college graduate from someone aged 25 who chose an alternative experience.

substacks referenced above:

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Why aren't we talking about the real reason male college enrollment is dropping?

1. If she is saying that there are too many women in college, then I agree with Noah Smith.

f there’s one thing 18-year-old guys tend to want, it’s to be around girls. Young Americans may be having less sex these days, but I find it hard to believe that the basic motivations of young men have been reversed to that great a degree.