Something worrying is happening to university access. It’s not what opponents of higher tuition fees predicted, which is that the higher rates would put off poorer students, so it might not get as much pick-up. It might also get less pick-up because it concerns a group that it isn’t particularly fashionable to worry about, which is poor young men. A report today from the Independent Commission on Fees finds that poor young men are less likely to go to university than women from the same background – and this gender gap is widening.
The ICF, which was set up to examine the impact of charging students £9,000 a year, found a ‘growing gender gap amongst university entrants’. It is particularly worried about this gap in the case of the group of poorest students, in which girls leaving school are 48 per cent more likely to get into university than similarly disadvantaged boys, even though the numbers of students from this group have increased.
The table below shows that the gap between the sexes is widening.
The report says:
‘This also points to pockets of the country where there is a cultural challenge to males in particular that could lead to the entrenchment of low income and lack of opportunity.’
That cultural challenge starts long before pupils start filling out university application forms. As I explained in a piece for the magazine last year, boys are behind girls at every single stage of their education, winning only in the battle to take scientific subjects, and only getting ahead overall when women start having babies and leave the workplace, allowing their male counterparts to pull ahead in the pay stakes.
But it isn’t particularly fashionable to worry that boys are behind, more to celebrate that girls are ahead. Personally, I’d rather we aim for parity between the sexes, rather than a battle. And given poor boys don’t seem to be catching up after a temporary blip, perhaps it is time we worried a little more about a crisis of masculinity in our society.
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