The meeting between Michelle Obama and Akie Abe in Tokyo earlier this year was billed as a partnership to educate the 62 million girls around the globe who are not in school for one reason or another. Lost in the media coverage, however, is that in higher education at least the picture is entirely different.
According to a Pew Research Center analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data, the share of young women enrolled in college immediately after high school increased from 63 percent in 1994 to 71 percent in 2012. In contrast, the percent of men in the same period remained unchanged at 61 percent.
Hispanics showed a similar pattern. In 1994, about half of men and women enrolled in higher education. But nearly two decades later, women outpaced the men by 13 percentage points. For blacks, in 1994 more men than women enrolled in college immediately after high school. By 2012, the share of men remained the same, while the share of women grew by 12 percentage points.