Changing Times

How times have changed. Of course, it would be shocking if times did not change over fifty seven years.

When I was investigating colleges in 1965, I had a plethora of choices. As a White male, if qualified, I could be admitted anywhere. All the Ivies except Penn and Cornell were all-male (and pretty much all White). Even the Ivy wannabes (Lafayette, Lehigh, Colgate) were the same. The only football team we played during my freshman year at Lafayette with female cheerleaders was Bucknell.

High-achieving females in the HS Class of 1965 were limited to the Seven Sister Schools, like Hillary Clinton. Males outnumbered females at Penn State, Pitt, and other big state schools by 4:1. Females had to be Academic All-Stars to get into a state school unless it was Kutztown or East Stroudsburg. The Pennsylvania school system needed a steady supply of novice, grossly underpaid teachers each year.

Then, as now, students in the top 10% of their high school class were twice as likely to be female. Finally, those female Academic All-Stars are getting their due. Overall college undergraduate enrollment today is 2:1 female to male. It was an even split in 1980. Law and medical schools are predominantly female today as are top-notch business programs. Nearly 45% of engineering students at Lafayette are female today.

Dr King famously said, “The moral arc of the Universe is long but it tends toward justice.” The arc of higher education availability between the sexes was not actually long at all, but it has certainly achieved justice.

By Ed Dufton