College Campuses: Where The Boys Aren’t

Recent enrollment declines across the region don’t have to be demographic destiny.

Sixty-some years ago, long before entering the convent as Sister Judith, Dolores Hart joined a trio of other young starlets in the cult classic, “Where the Boys Are.” The “boys” in question were college boys. America was filled with them, and just about every other one of them headed to Florida for
spring break, the girls in pursuit.

In 1960, young women actually did go to college in pursuit of young men. It was a good place to find them. Men outnumbered women on campus, 54 to 46 percent, and a college degree meant something. The coeds were not just looking for dates; a good many of them were looking for husbands. The average
age of first marriage for women in 1960 was 20. The average for men: 22.

Today, by and large, college is a useless place to look for a husband. Women now outnumber men on campus 60-40 percent, and the average guy does not marry until he is 29. The shortfall in men is one factor driving a larger problem for college administrators—the shortfall in students.

First, the numbers. On the Missouri side, 21 of the 24 public higher-ed institutions in the state have lost enrollment over the past five years. At several of the institutions, the decline has been catastrophic. Lincoln University and the University of Central Missouri have each lost more than a third of their students. Missouri State University–West Plains campus has lost nearly half its students.

Kansas is not doing much better. Excluding the medical schools, seven of the eight state universities lost population over the past five years, as did all three of the municipal universities, and 17 of the 18 community colleges. Tellingly, however, the technical colleges in Kansas are actually gaining student population. 

So what’s going on? The Missouri Department of Higher Education and Workforce Development seems to have no idea. “There are varying factors likely that have contributed to fall enrollment dropping,” said Jessica Duren, an assistant commissioner for the department.  Financial? Pandemic? Who knows? “We have seen decades of growth in enrollment in colleges and universities,” added Duren, “and so we are slowly seeing a decline these last few years.” Well that helps.

The explanations for male withdrawal from academia are as mind-bogglingly evasive as they are for the overall decline in enrollment. As Derek Thompson concedes in an Atlantic article on this subject, “Sociologists and cultural critics have taken many dubious stabs at why the gender gap in education is growing.” Thompson then proceeds to make stabs even more dubious than the ones he rejected. 

Rather than joining the stab fest, I thought it might be more helpful to contrast one university that seems to be thriving with one that isn’t. Con-sider this first headline: “MU Reaches Record Enrollment, Retention Rate, Number of High-Achieving Students on First Day of Fall Semester.” Now consider this second headline: “Purdue enrollment record-breaking, just under 50,000 students.” The problem for MU? Its headline comes from 2015. Purdue’s comes from 2021. Why the difference?

In 2012, Purdue dared to appoint a Republican governor to head a state university in a Republican state. The nerve! Notoriously tight with the public dollar, Mitch Daniels passed on a formal inauguration explaining in an “Open Letter to the People of Purdue” that his focus would be on affordability, academic excellence and academic freedom. Daniels was as good as his word. Incredibly, in-state tuition remains at $9,992 today, the same as it was the year Daniels took over the presidency. In-state tuition and fees listed at Mizzou for this year are $13,128. 

“His parsimonious nature, when applied to public matters,” said the Atlantic of Daniels in a glowing article, “is why he and his university … are objects of curiosity and even wonderment in the world of higher education.” Some 60 percent of undergrads leave school without any debt at all.

Just as important, Daniels has made Purdue a citadel of free speech. In the wake of the University of Missouri meltdown in 2015, Daniels publicly declared, that Purdue “has a solemn responsibility not only to promote a lively and fearless freedom of debate and deliberation, but also to protect that freedom when others attempt to restrict it.” Added Daniels. “What a proud contrast to the environments that appear to prevail at places like Missouri and Yale.” Ouch!

Mizzou deserved the smackdown. If Daniels was Purdue’s public face, Mizzou’s was a communications prof with the unfortunate name Melissa Click. It was she who was caught on video famously demanding “some muscle over here” to remove a student journalist reporting on a protest Click herself was
leading. The campus protests and the university’s feckless response did not sit well with Missouri parents. In 2015, MU–Columbia had more than 35,000 students. Within two years, at a time when the enrollment at other MU branches remained stable, Mizzou student population had plunged to 30,000-plus.

Purdue upped its game in the fall of 2020 by daring to remain open despite the pandemic. The decision, Daniels told the students in a thoughtful commencement address, “involved a reading of the available data, which showed that people your age were at far less risk from the virus than from a host of other dangers.” Exactly! Daniels’s strategy paid off. According to a university release, “About 50 percent of students reported that Purdue’s approach towards the pandemic made them more interested in attending.” 

Purdue has resisted one other trend, namely, the feminization of the American campus. The university remains 58 percent male. This is due in no small part to the fact that the university is solidly STEM, its largest concentration being engineering. 

Purdue is still where the boys are. If I had a daughter, I’d send her there. In fact, we tried to. They turned her down, this despite the fact that both my wife and I are Purdue Ph.Ds. That, my friends, is a state university worth the tuition.