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The pandemic is speeding up the mass exodus of men from college

hechingerreport.org

31–40 of 67 posts

Re: The pandemic is speeding up the mass exodus of men from college

#31
post #6

Why would you want to go to college, have huge debt and learn things (CS) that's avaliable on the internet for free? even courses from an actual edu institutions like mit, stanford and so on The only thing I think is knowning people from the industry and seeing what cool stuff other people do, but otherwise? I just graduated with engineering degree that I've done on weekends while working full time as SE and I'd neve…

> even courses from an actual edu institutions like mit, stanford and so on

The lectures isn't a differentiator. It's the community of like-minded folks, informal discussions, projects, hackathons.

Re: The pandemic is speeding up the mass exodus of men from college

#32
post #4

To summarize the article, women are now 50% more likely to enroll in college than men. For those interested in the longer term trends, here is a pew report on the subject up to 2010 [1] The post article brings up the point of financial expectations, but I wonder what other factors could might be changing for young men. Alternatively, what factors ARE changing for women, and are not changing for men, specifically mino…

At the very least we need to see enrollment rates per social class and college type. It's very likely the article makes news out of a mundane thing that boils down to a new counting scheme.

If 3 women are enrolling and graduating for every 2 men in the US total, it is hard to understand how this could be a counting scheme.

Understanding what social classes and colleges are most impacted might help determine the root cause, but wouldn't negate the totals.

Re: The pandemic is speeding up the mass exodus of men from college

#33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Respectfully, this logic reminds me of the leaps commonly seen in crackpot conspiracy theories. I am highly skeptical of any supposed connection between economic equality and increased civil unrest, let alone polygamy . Critical thinking time. Is there an established link between female self-esteem and polygamy? Let's suppose there is, does polygamy actually hurt communities? Where's the evidence for that? If women a…

> I am highly skeptical of any supposed connection between economic equality and increased civil unrest, The French Revolution begs to differ.

[dead]

Re: The pandemic is speeding up the mass exodus of men from college

#34
post #10
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the very least we need to see enrollment rates per social class and college type. It's very likely the article makes news out of a mundane thing that boils down to a new counting scheme.

I'm curious what makes you confident that it's a non-issue and just related to how we count things. I've heard many reports over the past 10 years or so that women are going to college at a higher rate than men. Anecdotally, my graduating class was almost 60% female over a decade ago.

It's just general distrust to media companies that like to invent news. I don't know much about the situation with colleges in the us otherwise.

Re: The pandemic is speeding up the mass exodus of men from college

#35
post #12

With the combination of increasing economic equality between the sexes (young women actually earn more nowadays) and women’s rising expectations from online dating attention, I think it’s clear that we’re heading rapidly towards the normalization of polygamy. There’s just no incentive for women to ever “settle” anymore. I fear that this is going to end in civil unrest when so many young men are economically insecure…

I don't expect "one husband, multiple wives" style polygamy, but a de-facto "stud" or "babydaddy" system might come about. At the socioeconomic high end that could involve intermediation by sperm banks; it could even be a standard part of your corporate benefits package. More commodification. Women select donors on the basis of style-setting op-ed pieces. "Autists" somewhere on the Internet figure out how to get rich…

Just curious but do you have a source for the claim that a surprising number of women are not having sex at a late age?

The sad part of this comment is that it seems almost inevitable given how much our society has driven the commodification of human relationships. Most of my friends always "hedged" their relationships, that is, having multiple partners waiting in the wings in case their old relationship falls off, or in case something "better" comes along. In this case better is a purely emotionally detached lists of pros and cons, an exchange of what can be gained. I can see women in their early 30s downloading an app and then clicking through a form of what their ideal sperm phenotypes will be. Blue eyes, over 6 feet, college educated etc. Then it gives you a catalogue of men with professional headshots and brief product descriptions listing all their greatest traits for you to select from.

Re: The pandemic is speeding up the mass exodus of men from college

#36
post #6

Why would you want to go to college, have huge debt and learn things (CS) that's avaliable on the internet for free? even courses from an actual edu institutions like mit, stanford and so on The only thing I think is knowning people from the industry and seeing what cool stuff other people do, but otherwise? I just graduated with engineering degree that I've done on weekends while working full time as SE and I'd neve…

My formal education isn't even close to CS, zero overlap, but I've been paid to write software for the majority of my work history. I'm an autodidact, and I wouldn't change the path I took to get where I am, but I am keenly aware of one major point of weakness: it is what Donald Rumsfeld would describe as "unknown unknowns". Yes, I initially saved a lot of time by skipping the breadth and diving right into the depth, but I'm not so sure about the time savings in the long run. I remember one conversation I had with a well lettered friend (working on his second doctorate at the time), I was bragging about a predictive algorithm I'd spent a week or two on - and its remarkable accuracy. After he listened to me describe it in detail, he asked "... so, Poisson regression?" While I was relieved to find that my implementation still outperformed the off the shell variety, simply being aware of its existence would have saved me a lot of time.

Re: The pandemic is speeding up the mass exodus of men from college

#37
post #36
post #6

Why would you want to go to college, have huge debt and learn things (CS) that's avaliable on the internet for free? even courses from an actual edu institutions like mit, stanford and so on The only thing I think is knowning people from the industry and seeing what cool stuff other people do, but otherwise? I just graduated with engineering degree that I've done on weekends while working full time as SE and I'd neve…

My formal education isn't even close to CS, zero overlap, but I've been paid to write software for the majority of my work history. I'm an autodidact, and I wouldn't change the path I took to get where I am, but I am keenly aware of one major point of weakness: it is what Donald Rumsfeld would describe as "unknown unknowns". Yes, I initially saved a lot of time by skipping the breadth and diving right into the depth,…

That is a good point. I am on the other side - excessively academic. One thing I've noticed is that understanding something does not equal having working knowledge of it (knowing how to implement it, etc.), a person with a theoretical background would often try to place a concept within a large framework and then make it owrk, an 'empiricist' or tinkerer would work the way from the bottom which would result in actual useful results. I sometimes ponder about this, and while I don't mean that one should invent the wheel, my conclusion is that In order to have an approach of knowing what would work in many different problems, a person with academic background would need to spend years delving into their discipline. The solution seems to have a combination of both approaches or as Nassim Taleb says, 'street+personal library'.

Re: The pandemic is speeding up the mass exodus of men from college

#38
post #12

With the combination of increasing economic equality between the sexes (young women actually earn more nowadays) and women’s rising expectations from online dating attention, I think it’s clear that we’re heading rapidly towards the normalization of polygamy. There’s just no incentive for women to ever “settle” anymore. I fear that this is going to end in civil unrest when so many young men are economically insecure…

Rising expectations doesn't increase the pool of high quality men and polygamy, unlike marriage, doesn't provide a safety net. I also bet that few women will want to follow the path of lonely competition. Men do it because they have no choice, not because they like it.

Re: The pandemic is speeding up the mass exodus of men from college

#39
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Respectfully, this logic reminds me of the leaps commonly seen in crackpot conspiracy theories. I am highly skeptical of any supposed connection between economic equality and increased civil unrest, let alone polygamy . Critical thinking time. Is there an established link between female self-esteem and polygamy? Let's suppose there is, does polygamy actually hurt communities? Where's the evidence for that? If women a…

Economic equality means women don't need to pair up with men for utility reasons anymore, which means a lot of men will be leftovers since this has historically made up a huge chunk of all marriages. Polygamy or at least polyamory follows since sexual and emotional needs are better met by one man to many women pairings. This is very easy since online dating creates a super efficient market where most women have hundr…

I am genuinely sorry that so many men appear to grow up in a culture that teaches this about women. It's deeply misogynist, and makes the assumption that women must hate men just as much.

This simply isn't the case. The vast majority of women genuinely like men. Not as penises to be notched, but as human beings. Many of them want a long-term partner because it makes them feel good. It's nice to have a person they can rely on and develop a life with. It's hard enough to find one person for that, and many are content with finding that one person. For most women that's going to mean finding one man.

And that gets even harder when faced with the sheer number of men who seem to think the way you do, seeing women as commodities on a "super efficient market" to meet their "sexual needs" -- and threatening "antisocial activity" when they're not met. If you ever wonder why women refuse to date you, you can cross off everything you think is at the top of your list -- money, attractiveness, ambition, whatever. Every reason women refuse to date you is in your post here, and none of the others matters even a tiny fraction as much as you think it does.

Your "sexual frustration" has nothing to do with women. If you need an orgasm, go take care of it yourself. If what you want is a trophy of your economic and sexual prowess, don't use a human being for that. If what you want is a partner in life -- including one who takes an interest in your sexuality -- stop talking about them as if that were a commodity to be purchased or a prize to be won. And certainly not as predators looking to use you, because that's precisely how you are appearing to them.

Women are human beings. Seek out a human connection with them, and you'll discover that that's something that they want, too. That doesn't make it easy to find one who is a good match that stands up to years or decades. But that's not the reason you're alone, brooding about how better men are taking up all the women.

Re: The pandemic is speeding up the mass exodus of men from college

#40
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't expect "one husband, multiple wives" style polygamy, but a de-facto "stud" or "babydaddy" system might come about. At the socioeconomic high end that could involve intermediation by sperm banks; it could even be a standard part of your corporate benefits package. More commodification. Women select donors on the basis of style-setting op-ed pieces. "Autists" somewhere on the Internet figure out how to get rich…

Just curious but do you have a source for the claim that a surprising number of women are not having sex at a late age? The sad part of this comment is that it seems almost inevitable given how much our society has driven the commodification of human relationships. Most of my friends always "hedged" their relationships, that is, having multiple partners waiting in the wings in case their old relationship falls off, o…

I'm having trouble tracking down the exact statistics, though [1] comes close. It seems to apply less to women than I remembered. The source [4] is more scholarly and tells the same story.

The BBC article [2] is unfortunately just anecdotal.

At [3] they cite the CDC, saying

> between 12-14 percent of adults aged 20-24 have never had sex. This number drops to around five percent for adults aged 25-29, and by age 44, only around 0.3 percent of adults report never having had the type of sex that could end in somebody getting pregnant.

which are much lower numbers than I remember from another survey.

What I remember is that, although on the one hand there is still a bulk trend of decreasing age of sexual debut, on the other hand these average/median statistics hide a large cohort of more-educated women who have never had a sexual partner. But my impression may not be supported by national data, and may involve social selection effects.

[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/03/29/share-ame...

[2] https://www.bbc.com/news/stories-44143003

[3] https://health.howstuffworks.com/relationships/love/how-many...

[4] https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle...

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