"Nearly six out of ten." In other words, slightly more than half. Could we all calm down a bit?"



To me, slightly more than half implies that the numbers are nearly equal.



Six out of ten means that 1.5 times more women receive degrees than men. That's a significant difference.

Women outnumber men - nothing new there ; however, by sheer numbers women can make themselves more powerfull in politics et al.

I'm not a math whiz, but 6/10ths = 3/5ths. Is that one and a half times more? (And it's not even 3/5ths.)

6 women get degrees
4 men get degrees

4*1.5=6.

1.5 times more women than men receive college degrees.

And 3 is 1.5 times more than 2. So, yes, to both your questions.

I wasn't too concerned with this when it was 105 women for every 100 men. Now I'm starting to worry. These numbers are too high.

This isn't a feminism thing. This is a future of America thing.

Wow, what happened to the line breaks in my comment?

Meryl,



Thanks for helping on the explanation.



-Jeff

I'm not sure what the deal is with line breaks and my CSS. Something I need to address that I have been putting off.

I don't see why 4-yr college degrees are the Gold Standard of the future of America. America needs to start validating the intelligence and skill it takes to be a good auto mechanic, plumber, or tool and die maker (of which almost none are left in the US, they are all in Germany where they have an apprenticeship system for skilled crafts.)

We have serious degree inflation in this country, and if those women were smart they'd stop pursuing those cookie-cutter lib arts degrees and learn something useful which pays well.

Judith,



I think it could create a number of problems - not the least of which is that women with college degrees do not like to marry men who earn less money than they do. (A NY Times Select article on the subject is discussed here: http://www.reason.com/hitandrun/2006/01/the_educated_ma.shtml )



Moreover, one could equally argue that being a good seamstress, house cleaner or secretary should also be valued. Nevertheless, I don't think anyone would be happy if Women started performing considerably worse than men in college.



If the statistics are correct, I cannot see how this is anything other than bad news.



-Jeff (now signed into my typekey account)

If you want line breaks to show, you have to use code for them.

This happened after some upgrade or code change, Judith. And when you changed it again, this feature never changed back.

I try to add them into other people's comments, when indicated, if I remember.

I'm much more worried about college freshmen that have trouble with fractions. Really, fifth grade stuff and they can't do it. Try teaching students like that algebra. I also recall a psychology graduate student who wrote a short paper that consisted of *one* paragraph in block letters. Gender imbalance is just one aspect of a far bigger problem. Take for instance this bit on a fifth grade math curriculum:

A Fifth grade math curriculum should be taught using Fifth grade lessons including interactive activities, learning games, printable worksheets, assessments, and reinforcement.

Don't you just want to barf?

"nearly 6 out of 10 = slightly more than half"? As points of comparison, Johnson beat Goldwater by 61-39, and Reagan beat Mondale by 59-41. Do you remember either of these elections as being roughly even?