Marissa Heebner always knew she would attend college.

But the freshman from Clifton, Va., didn’t realize she would see so many other women when she arrived.

Over the past 30 years, women have started enrolling and graduating from Western and other colleges and universities in larger numbers than men.

But there are still more men with doctorate degrees and higher-paying jobs, despite the wave of women in higher education.

Some people are also worried about other trends, including some areas of study dominated by one gender and lagging male enrollment and graduation rates.

Women excel on the Hill

Women have filled more seats in Western classrooms than men in the past decade.

Western’s graduation rate has been about 60 percent female for about 10 years, said Luther Hughes, director of

enrollment management. Women also compose 60 percent of those enrolled at Western.

Women made up 42 percent of undergraduates nationally in 1970. By 2000, they were 56 percent.

Kentucky schools generally follow this trend, according to statistics from the Council on Post-Secondary Education.

1979 was the last year men received more undergraduate degrees in Kentucky than women.

Karen Tice, an associate professor in educational policy studies and women’s studies at the University of Kentucky, said the gender gap is a long-term trend. Forty percent of students in co-educational institutions in the 1920s were women, she said.

Women are also more likely to enroll in college immediately after high school, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.

A gendered job market may contribute to the trend.

Hughes said more women may be heading toward higher education because jobs available to high school graduates often require strenuous labor and are taken by men.

There is also a perception that women need to outperform men in some workplaces to be considered equal, he said. Women started working harder and became better students.

Hughes said more of Western’s best students are women. This year, eight women – out of a group of 10 students – received the presidential scholarship, which pays for tuition, housing, meals and books.

Differences may arise in high school

Attitudes toward education begin making a difference to students when they are still in high school.

Trends in high school can lead female students to be better prepared for college, Hughes said.

“I am not a psychologist,” he said. “But I wish I better understood why many male students don’t consider it ‘cool’ to try to be academically outstanding students.”

Gary Fields, the principal for Bowling Green High School, said the top students usually fluctuate between males and females each year.

But females probably perform a little better overall, he said.

Mark Davis, the principal at Greenwood High School, has noticed one major difference in the students’ Commonwealth Accountability Testing System scores – girls have much higher reading scores than boys.

Davis said he could not explain this, but believes better reading skills could affect girls’ future academic performance.

But reading was the only subject where there was a difference.

“In other subject areas, there is no noticeable gap,” he said.

Men succeeding more than women

More women may be wearing black caps and gowns each year, but discrepancies remain.

There are still inequalities between men and women in certain fields of study, level of education achieved and occupations.

More men are employed in high-paying jobs, even though more women have degrees, Tice said.

“It would be very hard to say at the end of the day that because women have a numerical majority that they have the power, prestige and pay and really a solid place in higher education,” Tice said.

Women tend to get better grades, but they can lose confidence as they progress in their academic careers, she said.

Research that says men excel more in certain subjects can make women doubt their performance, Tice said.

Women and men are equally likely to earn a master’s degree. But 23 percent of men earned a doctorate or had some other higher educational attainment while only 13 percent of women did so, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.

Tice said female students don’t see as many female faculty members in college and may lose incentive to get doctorates. Seeing women’s positions in college could reaffirm stereotypes.

A status quo is also perpetuated by the numbers of women and men in certain colleges, she said. No one says women should be in their own colleges, but some colleges are so unequal that the results would be similar.

There are still more men in computer science, engineering and physical sciences, according to the education statistics.

Provost Barbara Burch said she thinks the gap between women and men in higher-paying jobs is decreasing. There are more opportunities because the best candidate for the position is chosen.

But the trend of fewer men enrolling and graduating from college is disturbing, Burch said.

“Ultimately, we have to keep the attendance and completion rates up for all of our students,” she said.

Bowling Green junior Stephanie Mills said it surprised her that there were more women than men in college.

“It’s neat from a female’s perspective because it shows we’re more ambitious than ever before,” Mills said.