Jacob Christensen

First, applause for Sara Mead for coining one of the best headlines in a long, long time: College is not a dating service.That’ll teach them!Second, even if women are outperforming men with regard to formal education and formal qualifications, it still doesn’t follow that women will be outperforming men with regard to income and social status in later life.And finally a quote:

But I wonder if articles like this contribute to something of a vicious cycle. Although there’s no evidence, a persistent theme – on both sides – in debates about why women are outstripping men on some academic indicators seems to be that at least some groups of women are more determined and are working harder because they’ve gotten a message that they need to do so in order to compete economically, provide for their future families, etc. It would be ironic if, as a result, prestige colleges really did start requiring women to be much better than men to be admitted. 

A possible hypothesis could be this: Higher education for women does in fact rub the balance of power between the sexes. This triggers unease and leads to myths about how the social order is put in jeopardy. (A fast application of Albert O. Hirschman’s “Rhetoric of Reaction“).