A lot of LACs are predominately female, and male applicants have an advantage in applying (take Vassar as an example). A lot of engineering/tech schools are predominately male, and female applicants have an advantage in applying. It seems like it should be a case of marketing yourself to places where you are a scarcer commodity?
@Coloradomama According to our college counselor, RPI would like to enroll more women so that they are a more attractive option OVERALL. The lopsidedness turns off both male and female applicants, at least in her experience.
Male applicants definitely have an admissions advantage at the college where I work, but personally I would like to see better recruiting options (aid, awards, perks) for male nursing and education majors. I would be strongly in favor of that.
As an aside, are Turks who aren’t Muslim discriminated against? Is it more about “people of color” being members of a certain religion? The US treated Irish immigrants very differently based on being Protestant or Catholic, they looked the same on the surface.
Does anyone know what specific programs and scholarships are being referred to? I thought Yale only does need-based aid.
@HappyAlumnus Turkish immigrants play the same role in Europe, especially Germany, as Mexican immigrants here (working mostly low-paid, unskilled jobs). Not so in the U.S., where the few Turks I’ve met tend to be well-educated and middle class. This has nothing to do with actual skin color and a lot to do with the social structure of specific societies.
Yes, but that does not necessarily mean that Turkish people in the US are discriminated against in a way similar to the way they are in Europe. A given ethnic group may be a heavily-discriminated-against outgroup in some countries but not others.
Of course, that is independent of whether someone is “of color” appearance wise.
He is truly of Caucasian descent…
@warbrain , the complaint against Yale centers on presumably “for women only” programs, not scholarships/aid. From the WSJ:
“The government dismissed parts of Mr. Pekgoz’s complaints, including concerns about Yale Women in Business and USC’s Gender Studies Program and its Center for Feminist Research, after finding that they don’t exclude or discriminate against men. But it will investigate Yale’s Women Faculty Forum, Yale Women Innovators and five other groups or programs at that school. It is also looking into USC scholarships and fellowships that are advertised as being open only to females, and a Women in Science and Engineering group that excludes males.”
Here is the link to the entire article, although there will likely be a pay wall. https://www.wsj.com/articles/do-pro-women-groups-on-campus-discriminate-against-men-1527067800
Why is it the government’s role to investigate Women’s groups at private universities? It seems to me that private schools can do what they want to. Why not investigate Liberty University? Hmmm… This is likely to backfire on the current administration.
It appears that this administration is bent on expanding the rights of for-profit schools while trying to disrupt and tax private universities.
Also, is it discriminatory for a school to have an all-male football team? I don’t think so. How is this different?
Its a problem of ACCESS for boys at Yale, is my understanding. Why should some academic programs at a co ed school be limited to girls? I may have missed something, though, but it sound very odd that Yale would do that.
But if it is scholarships, which may not be a problem at Yale,
The difference is IF a larger proportion of college scholarship money goes to girls and not boys, eventually less and less boys go to college. Its very very discouraging for boys to have higher grades and watch a girl with lower grades get a full ride to RPI for instance when they win a one quarter ride. Its builds tremendous resentments, and makes life HARDER for women in high tech in fact. They have to work with the guy who did not get the scholarship, and do you think he resents that? You bet he does. ! So giving more money to girls backfires for girls. I sure wish our society would get this. The fact that girls are handed things that boys with better academic records cannot get, is very very frustrating to me.
The reason we know that girls get a larger proportion of scholarship money is they are getting the majority of seats at all liberal arts colleges and fully half the seats at many techie schools like MIT and Harvey Mudd College.
This lawsuit has the potential to backfire spectacularly.
Since the ‘incel’ terrorist we also have to look at these attempts more cautiously. Who’s backing him? What’s his motivation since he’s not from Yale? Has he done the same for other colleges, or planning to?
I don’t know that it will “backfire”…everyone thought men suing colleges over Title IX discrimination would backfire and really what it did was make universities take a closer look at their practices and universities lost some and won some and got much scrutiny around the process. If this investigation does nothing more that raise university awareness that they need to monitor the pendulum and give equal opportunity to both genders then the investigation has done its job, whether or not anything comes from it. Title IX started out as mostly about athletics, but now that it has been used to expand it’s reach far into the hallways of universities and that the stated expansion was about access to education as well as equality it doesn’t take a gigantic leap to understand that there will be scrutiny around exactly what universities are doing for and to each gender.
No. LACs aggressively recruit boys and offer them scholarships at LACs. There are more girls because boys don’t, as much, want that type of education.
My personal anecdote-of-one? My two kids are very different stats-wise and only had one common college on their list. The lower stats boy was offered more merit scholarship money than the much higher stats girl.
That does not, in itself, imply that the girls are getting more money over boys who deserve it more.
So the scholarships are at USC, not Yale.
The issue is that college receive federal funds, which is why something like Title IX is applicable.
@colordaomama: What is your basis for saying that a girl with lesser stats gets a bigger scholarship than a boy with better stats at RPI? Do you have data to support this? As others have said, the RPI medalists are nominated by their HSs. How do the guys know the girl got the scholarship? There are a lot more barriers to women in tech than the admission rates at tech schools.
You are sort of contradicting yourself coloradomama as you are complaining the girls have higher admission rates at STEM schools, but also have more seats at LACs. The opposite is also true: boys take more seats at STEM schools and are admitted at higher rates to LACs.
Just so you know, I have all boys and I agree that there are issues related to how boys learn and the way schools are structured. But I just don’t buy the idea that girls are getting an overall advantage to boys for college admissions when the entire landscape is considered. More girls than boys go to college - but that is another issue.
It’s well-known that boys have a big advantage when applying to LACs, just as girls do when they apply to tech schools. It’s just harder to attract them to each type of school, so applying against type helps in securing admissions and/or scholarships. It’s called incentives and it’s not illegal.
Another issue is that fewer teen boys focus on academics, more boys have behavioral and disciplinary issues, some boys refuse adults’ authority, especially when they’re women, there may be “traditionally male” professions that recruit right after high school, etc. All in all fewer boys are qualified for and/or interested in college than girls.(This website isn’t representative since ambitious boys tend to be competitive, etc. 
)
I don’t see how the complaint stands.
We haven’t reached equality for women in STEM. Women haven’t reached equality in many fields actually nor in career progression. There aren’t support programs for women majoring in Education that I know of, although they could be useful seeing how poorly considered and compensated the profession is (and I agree, there could be some for men who choose traditionally female occupations but I’m not sure what form it’d take).
All the RPI recipients at our high school were male. I guess our high school wasn’t with the program.
Merit rewards are just bribes to get people to come to your college who might not come if they had to pay full price. RPI wants women more than men. There are lots of schools that want men - such as most of the formerly women’s colleges.
“I thought Yale only does need-based aid.”
That’s true for undergrad. They have lots of scholarships for different graduate programs. Pretty much all Ph.D. students will have scholarships. The linked articles do not make clear whether the complaint is university-wide or specific to particular Yale programs.
There just are not that many schools that enroll more men than women. RPI and Colorado School of Mines,
and Rose Hullman come to mind. But there are still a lot of slots for girls, more than half of every single LAC out there, which seems very unfair to me. Haverford and Bryn Mawr together educate mostly girls. While they are small, it seems very unfair that an all boys school had to go coed, but all girls schools can survive. It makes for a very lopsided social life at the schools that take primarily girls, like so many liberal arts colleges do today.
Also when are we going to ask this question-- Is there benefit to boys becoming nurses and kindergarten teachers?
Is gender balance important in all fields? Maybe if boys worked in elementary schools, those schools would pay everyone better. I see benefits to gender balance, but I don’t see it all one way, only to benefit girls. Why not try to benefit everyone? That would mean gender balancing both Bryn Mawr and Haverford, which are both lopsided to the girls side right now.
Either we believe in gender balance, or we don’t. I cannot see it half way, that only certain schools need to gender balance and get very hot under the collar as they are not, like RPI. Maybe all schools need to have the same goal if
we really believe in gender neutrality.
It should not be special this or that for one gender over another, if we truly believe in gender neutrality and equality.
But, we don’t !!! At least in the USA we don’t yet.
If a boy wants to become an elementary school or any sort of teacher, he’s snapped up, absolutely. In fact, one way in which inequality still reveals itself is that if a male goes into a traditionally female profession, he’s advantaged over females in hiring, salary, promotion… whereas when a female goes into a traditionally male profession she’s likely to hit a glass ceiling and may never get through, may encounter a hostile work environment, may be passed up for advancement, etc.
BTW, gender balance is important in education but the field has become so poorly paid that few boys choose it, which is detrimental to children. I agree that if more boys chose to be teachers, they’d be paid better - another example of the way disparity works.
The issue with LACs is that they TRY very hard to recruit boys, which is why it’s MUCH easier for them to get into selective LACs. The fact more girls attend doesn’t mean it’s easier to for girls to get in - the opposite is true. It’s maddeningly hard for Northeastern girls to get into LACs. You can’t “gender balance” Haverford when so many boys want large universities with big sports.
Gender neutrality - what do you mean?
The idea is to make it easier for people who have been historically discriminated against or still are (such as in tech right now) to show what they’re capable of and have a supportive rather than hostile environment.
So, a qualified girl will be admitted rather than the 10th qualified boy for a tech school slot. And a qualified boy will be admitted rather than the 10th qualified girl to a LAC.