Male students 'uncomfortable' on Texas campuses, education official says

Outnumbered male college students in Texas have created a sharp gender gap in statewide completion rates – and, according to the state’s higher education commissioner, a campus cultural problem for men.

“We’re getting to the point where males feel uncomfortable on some college campuses,” said Raymund Paredes, who leads Texas’ higher education coordinating board.

Paredes spoke Thursday at the University of Houston System’s board meeting to address progress toward broader statewide goals of having 60 percent of young adults in Texas earn a post-secondary degree or certificate by 2030.

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He identified several target populations that are lagging in achieving those goals: black students, Hispanic students, economically disadvantaged students and men.

Male students in Texas earned 62,211 degrees and certificates from public four-year universities in 2016, far behind female students, who received 82,700, according to the coordinating board’s data. That gap has persisted since at least 2014.

“This is a situation that is unsustainable,” he said.

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Paredes said that some Texas campuses enroll 60 percent women and 40 percent men and added that black and Hispanic men are the least well-represented subgroups in higher education.

Socioeconomic status, he said, is the biggest indicator of academic failure, and low-income students broadly face long odds of success.

“The single biggest tragedy in American education is that if you either start behind or fall behind very early, you almost never catch up in this country,” he said.

Lindsay Ellis writes about higher education for the Chronicle. You can follow her on Twitter and send her tips at lindsay.ellis@chron.com.