We're Asking the Wrong Questions About Disparities in College Enrollment
A Wall Street Journal article about the gender gap is easy to misinterpret
***Hi! So: Based on the results of a recent poll (thanks for voting in those polls, BTW), there seems to be an appetite for more-frequent, less-in-depth stuff. So, IN ADDITION TO the longer, fancy-pants, frankly-sometimes-a-bit-too-self-serious posts that arrive on Tuesday and Friday, I’ll also send out occasional, shorter posts on more eclectic topics as the mood strikes me. Think of it this way: If the Tuesday/Friday columns are a burger at Denny’s, these columns are one of those pre-wrapped sandwiches you buy at a bus station.
This is the first one of those shorter columns, and…God damn it, it’s 1700 words. Sorry: This one got away from me a bit. But most of them will be shorter, I promise.
And everything’s still free for the time being, unless you’re one of those deeply generous souls/complete suckers who have decided to pay me.
A recent Wall Street Journal article leaves a clear impression: We’re facing a crisis in higher education. Just look at this headline and photo:
Wow. Stark. Look at the expression on his face: That would stick with you even if you didn’t know that the photographer was behind the camera yelling “Look more lost! More! MORE! Still not lost enough — look really fucking lost!!!” But I don’t mean to make light of that kid’s situation: I believe he feels lost. Even though — if you look at the far left of the photo — it seems that he has maybe won an Oscar. But for what — Argo? Obviously, the ones for Argo don’t count.
The article is full of grim statistics: At the end of the last academic year, men made up 40.5 percent of college students, an all-time low. Only 59 percent of men who start a four-year degree finish within six years, compared to 65 percent of women. Men accounted for 71 percent of the drop in college enrollment last year. The implication is clear: This is an outrage. A crisis. A worrying trend that we, as a nation, must address.
Of course, since Turd in the Punch Bowl is pretty much my brand, I’ll go ahead and ask: Is it a crisis, though?
Let’s start with this: What some have called “gap-ism” — seeing every statistical disparity as a problem that must be fixed — is a pernicious disease. Ibram X. Kendi is the High Priest of Gap-ism, but the reflex goes far beyond him and his acolytes. There’s a strain of leftist discourse that seems to believe that, in a just society, the distribution of any desirable thing — money, college degrees, good jobs — will perfectly match societal demographics along any conceivable metric. This is, of course, completely bonkers, and I’ll concede that most people who hold this view actually hold a “soft” version of it — there are few absolutists. But it’s become common to point to any statistical gap and say: “Look, discrimination! The gap itself is the proof!”