A Historic Struggle

In America, there has been a history of discrimination in every facet of society based upon factors like race, gender, sexual orientation, and more according to many scholars. It has been particularly apparent in higher education, where, for many generations, there existed vast discrimination that reinforced inequality.

But in some areas, this is improving. According to Forbes, female students have outnumbered their male peers on college campuses since the late 1970s. Today, the nation’s public college student population is about 56.4 percent female, while private college enrollment is even higher, at 59.3 percent. Additionally, according to an article in the Washington Post, women earn the highest number of college degrees across the country. This is not only the trend nationally but has as well occurred here into Iowa.

“Historically I would say Iowa has been fairly split about 50 percent men, 50 percent women, if you’re looking at the sex binary,” said Danielle Martinez, an Associate Director in Academic Support and Retention at the University of Iowa. “I think that as time has gone on we’ve swung so we have more women than men about closer to 60 percent women and 40 percent men.”

This even extends to small, private, liberal arts colleges like Grinnell College. Located in a small town in Poweshiek County, Iowa, Grinnell has a student body composed of 55 percent women and 45 percent men. But the progress doesn’t end at who is going to college, but who is succeeding in college as well.

“For my graduating class of 2016, 82 percent of female students and 72 percent of male students graduated in four years,” said Katherine Tucker, an admissions officer at Grinnell.