Tag: women

As men stop going to college, women have now overtaken them in graduate and professional degrees

by Jon Marcus, The Hechinger Report
January 20, 2026

WATERTOWN, Mass. — Amanda Leef remembers thinking for the first time about becoming a veterinarian when she was 4 and found a garter snake in her Michigan backyard.

“I think every girl goes through a phase of wanting to be a vet,” Leef said.

For her, it wasn’t just a phase. Now, at 48, she co-owns her own bustling veterinary practice, Heal Veterinary Clinic, in this Boston suburb.

All seven veterinarians here are women. So is the large team of vet techs, and the entire rest of the 22-member medical staff.

“In really broad generalities, I think women are more interested in the emotional and empathetic side of things than men are,” Leef said, sitting on the floor of an examination room with one of her patients, an affectionate, white-furred golden retriever named Cypress.

For that and other reasons, women studying veterinary medicine now outnumber men by four to one.

It’s not just veterinary school. The number of women has surpassed the number of men in law school, medical school, pharmacy school, optometry school and dental school.

Women in the United States now earn 40 percent more doctoral degrees overall, and nearly twice as many master’s degrees, as men, according to the U.S. Department of Education — a trend transforming high-end work.

This is no longer some distant statistical abstraction. Americans can see it when they take their pets to the vet or their kids to the dentist, need a lawyer or an eye exam, see a therapist or pick up a prescription.

The dramatic shift in who is being trained for these fields is partly because more women are going into them. But it’s also the result of a steady slide in the number of men enrolling in graduate and professional schools. And while that may be elevating women, it’s affecting the nation’s economic competitiveness and even the point at which people get married and have children.

“Having all students represented and engaged in graduate study ensures that we have healthy communities and families and a vital economy,” said Chevelle Newsome, president of the Council of Graduate Schools.

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Graduate schools — including the 460 Newsome represents — have their own motive for wanting more men to enroll. They’re facing new threats from declining international enrollment, impending federal borrowing limits for graduate study and a public backlash against the high cost and uneven returns of graduate degrees.

The main reason women have overtaken men in graduate school, however, is that more women than men are earning the undergraduate degrees required to go on to advanced study.

“Women certainly still see education in terms of upward mobility,” said Lisa Greenhill, chief organizational health officer at the American Association of Veterinary Medical Colleges, whose job includes trying to diversify veterinary medicine. “Men have a lot more options. They feel like they don’t have to go to a four-year program or a graduate program.”

The number of men enrolled as undergraduates in college nationwide has dropped by nearly a quarter of a million, or 4 percent, just since 2020, the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center reports.

Women now account for about 60 percent of undergraduate enrollment. Nearly half of women aged 25 to 34 have bachelor’s degrees, compared to 37 percent of men, according to the Pew Research Center.

“Men aren’t seeing higher education as valuable,” said Newsome. Many go into the trades or take other jobs straight out of high school to begin immediately earning a wage, forgoing the need to spend time in or money on college. Even men who do get undergraduate degrees may not see the value in continuing beyond them, she said.

The effects of this have been stark and swift.

The number of women earning law degrees passed the number of men in 2019, figures from the American Bar Association, or ABA, show; while only four of the law schools ranked among the 20 most prestigious by U.S. News & World Report had more women than men in 2016, women now outnumber men at 18 of them, according to the nonprofit law student news site JURIST.

Related: Trump’s attacks on DEI may hurt men in college admission

That’s already having a real-world impact. By 2020, the ABA says, the majority of general lawyers working for the federal government were women, and by 2023, the majority of associates at law firms were.

In medical schools, the number of women also overtook the number of men in 2019. Today, 55 percent of future doctors are women, up from 48 percent in 2015, according to the Association of American Medical Colleges, or AAMC.

Women already make up significantly larger proportions of residents in specialties including endocrinology, pediatrics, obstetrics and gynecology, family medicine and psychiatry.

Women also outnumber men by three to one in doctoral programs in psychology, and by nearly four to one in master’s programs, the American Psychological Association reports. They make up 55 percent of graduates of dental schools, and 72 percent in pediatric dentistry, according to the American Dental Association.

More than seven out of 10 students in schools of optometry are women, the Association of Schools and Colleges of Optometry says. And at pharmacy schools, women constitute two-thirds of students working toward master’s degrees and 56 percent of those seeking doctorates, statistics from the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy show.

There are still more men than women in doctoral and master’s degree programs in business, engineering, math and the physical sciences. But women make up substantial majorities of graduate enrollment in health sciences, public administration, education, social and behavioral sciences and biological and agricultural sciences, according to the Council of Graduate Schools.

While this represents impressive progress for women, the declining number of men enrolling in graduate programs is bad news for universities and colleges that offer them, for some patients in the health care system and for the economy.

That’s because the growing number of women going to graduate and professional schools can’t continue forever to outpace the decline in the number of men. Total graduate enrollment at private, nonprofit colleges and universities was already down this fall, the Clearinghouse reports.

Related: Football fantasy: Colleges add sports to bring men, but it doesn’t always work

That’s a problem made worse by visa restrictions and cuts to federal research funding, which have helped reduce the number of international students coming to the United States for graduate study by 12 percent, according to the Institute of International Education.

New federal loan limits scheduled to take effect next year are widely expected to further eat into graduate school enrollment. The changes will cap borrowing at $100,000 for graduate students and $200,000 for those in professional programs. That’s much less than the $408,150 the AAMC says it costs to get a medical degree from a private, nonprofit university or the $297,745 from a public one. The association of medical colleges projects a national shortage of as many as 124,000 physicians by 2034.

The price of getting a graduate degree has more than tripled since 2000, according to the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce. Graduate degrees have become a critical revenue source for universities, which take in about $20 billion a year from master’s programs alone, a separate analysis, by the right-leaning think tank the American Enterprise Institute, calculates.

Students of all genders are increasingly questioning the return on that investment. Nearly 40 percent of prospective graduate students say graduate programs that cost more than $10,000 a year are too expensive, a new survey by the enrollment management consulting firm EAB finds. Payoffs vary widely, making some graduate degrees “a potentially high-risk investment,” the Georgetown Center on Education and the Workforce has concluded.

The proportion of Americans 25 and older with master’s degrees or higher has fallen since 2000, from first in the world to 24th, according to the World Bank, while the percentage of those with doctoral degrees has dropped during that period from first to seventh.

“That is a huge concern, when you think about where economies are going,” said Claudia Buchmann, an Ohio State University sociologist who studies this issue and is coauthor of the book “The Rise of Women.” “If we’re trying to compete on a global level, the fact that men’s college-going rates are so stagnant means we can’t fix this problem until we get more men.”

Related: Even as women outpace men in graduating from college, their earnings remain stuck

Men are, after all, half the nation’s labor force. And while some graduate degrees may not pay off, many of them do, substantially. People with advanced degrees are also much less likely to be unemployed.

“When you think about global economic competitiveness for the United States — despite the skepticism that’s out there — education and training are still the keys to good jobs,” Buchmann said. Falling behind by that measure “is doing damage to men in this country.”

But experts worry that the gender shift is self-perpetuating. Men may be put off by what they see as the “feminization” of professions in which they now are the minority, research by the veterinary medical colleges association concluded.

“I’m not seeing a national effort to say we need to change this,” Buchmann said. “If anything, the opposite is true.”

Graduate school leaders say the most effective efforts at reversing this trend are at the undergraduate level. “A lot of the effort from the graduate community has been to reach down and support those projects,” said Newsome, who was formerly dean of graduate studies at California State University, Sacramento. Universities also are encouraging employers to sponsor graduate education for male employees, she said.

The effects of this widening gender divide are not just economic. New studies show that growing gender disparities in education can affect relationships. Marriage rates have fallen as levels of education rise, according to research from Iowa State University; each additional year of schooling reduces by about 4 percentage points the likelihood that someone between 25 and 34 is married. The proportion of Americans in that age bracket who are married has declined from 80 percent in 1970 to 38 percent today.

Related: Universities and colleges search for ways to reverse the decline in the ranks of male students

“When folks are looking for partners, there’s a desire to find someone economically comparable,” said Greenhill, of the veterinary medical colleges association. Added Buchmann, at Ohio State: “A lot of masculine norms are about being the breadwinner of the family. If the woman is the principal breadwinner, that presents not just economic challenges, but challenges to make marriages work.”

More-educated women are also more likely to delay or forgo having children, according to separate research from the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania.

Back at her veterinary clinic, Amanda Leef makes the rounds, checking in on a dog getting his teeth cleaned and a pair of kittens waiting to be adopted.

Only one male veterinarian has ever applied to work there, Leef said. He was hired, but eventually left to go into research.

“It does change the personality of a clinic” to be made up of only women, she said. “A staff that’s diverse is more accessible to a broader range of people. I just think the world is better with greater gender diversity.”

Contact writer Jon Marcus at 212-678-7556, [email protected] or jpm.82 on Signal.

This story about higher education and men was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for our higher education newsletter. Listen to our higher education podcast.

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January 20, 2026
Supreme Court Considers Laws Banning Trans Women in Sports

For years, state laws prohibiting transgender girls and women from playing on sports teams matching their gender identity have proliferated, along with legal challenges to these bans.

But now, the U.S. Supreme Court may settle what’s become a national controversy.

On Tuesday, the high court considered the legality of the bans in Idaho and West Virginia.

In more than three hours of oral arguments, the justices and attorneys debated when there should be exceptions allowed to broad legislation that discriminates against specific groups, how the presence or absence of medical testosterone regulation and biological performance advantages affect the legality of these prohibitions, whether sex should be defined as biological sex under Title IX, and what Title IX’s allowance for sex-segregated teams means if transgender women are allowed to play on women’s teams.

“You don’t think we should have an operating definition of sex in Title IX?” Chief Justice John Roberts said at one point to an attorney representing a trans child.

Lawyers representing the students who have challenged the bans said the cases were about access to athletics for a small number of transgender people, including those who are regulating their testosterone. Kathleen R. Hartnett, an attorney challenging the Idaho ban, said her client “has suppressed her testosterone for over a year and taken estrogen,” saying the Idaho law “fails heightened scrutiny” as applied to such trans women “who have no sex-based biological advantage as compared to birth sex females.”

Twenty-seven states ban trans women from participating at some level of athletics, according to lawyers both defending and arguing against such prohibitions. Repeatedly Tuesday, Justice Brett Kavanaugh asked whether states that don’t have such bans are breaking the law or should be allowed discretion—suggesting he’s considering a ruling affecting more than the restrictions in Idaho and West Virginia.

Kavanaugh asked whether states without prohibitions are violating Title IX and the Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause, and whether sex under Title IX could reasonably be interpreted to allow different states to define it differently. He said trans participation can harm girls who don’t make the cutoff for teams, but also expressed hesitancy to rule nationally, asking why the court should “constitutionalize a rule for the whole country while there’s still … uncertainty and debate.”

Justice Samuel Alito didn’t ask many questions, but when he did, he homed in on how sex should be defined under Title IX. He asked how the court could determine discrimination based on sex without determining what sex means. He also asked whether female athletes who oppose transgender women on their teams should be considered “deluded” or “bigots.”

At one point, Justice Neil Gorsuch said that “I’ve been wondering what’s straightforward after all this discussion.” Regarding whether puberty blockers eliminate all competitive advantage, Gorsuch said there’s a “scientific dispute about the efficacy of some of these treatments.”

Almost a year ago, long after West Virginia and Idaho passed their laws, President Trump signed an executive order banning trans women from participating in women’s sports and threatening universities with loss of federal funding if they disobey. The next day, the NCAA announced a policy restricting “competition in women’s sports to student-athletes assigned female at birth only.”

The Trump administration has since pressured institutions to bar trans women. In April, for example, the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights concluded that the University of Pennsylvania violated Title IX by allowing a trans woman to compete on a women’s sports team—presumably referring to Lia Thomas, who last competed on the swim team in 2022, in accord with NCAA policies at that time.

Idaho and West Virginia

The court took up two cases Tuesday, Little v. Hecox and West Virginia v. B.P.J. These suits, which center on whether anti–transgender participation laws violate Title IX and the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause, have been ongoing for years.

In 2020, Idaho became the first state to pass a law outright banning trans girls and women from participating in school sports matching their gender identity. Lindsay Hecox is a trans woman who was nevertheless able to participate in women’s club running and club soccer at Boise State University because she sued that same year and a district court blocked enforcement of the law against her.

In 2024, her lawyers wrote that she tried out for the university’s women’s cross-country and track teams but didn’t make it, “consistently running slower than her cisgender women competitors.” Her attorneys stress that her “circulating testosterone levels are typical of cisgender women.”

Hecox’s attorneys had opposed the Supreme Court taking up the case, previously writing that it’s “about a four-year-old injunction against the application of [the Idaho law] with respect to one woman, which is allowing her to participate in club running and club soccer.” Then, in September 2025, her lawyers argued the case had become moot, saying Hecox dismissed her claims and “committed not to try out for or participate in any school-sponsored women’s sports covered by” the state law.

“In the five years since this case commenced, Ms. Hecox has faced significant challenges that have affected her both personally and academically,” including an illness and her father’s death, her lawyers wrote. They said she’s “come under negative public scrutiny from certain quarters because of this litigation, and she believes that such continued—and likely intensified—attention in the coming school year will distract her from her schoolwork and prevent her from meeting her academic and personal goals.”

“While playing women’s sports is important to Ms. Hecox, her top priority is graduating from college and living a healthy and safe life,” they wrote.

But attorneys defending the Idaho law have argued not to dismiss the case—a position that may allow a national ruling from the high court.

Protesters gathered outside the Supreme Court on Tuesday as the justices heard arguments in two cases concerning trans athletes.

Ryan Quinn | Inside Higher Ed

On Tuesday, Alan M. Hurst, Idaho’s solicitor general, argued that the case wasn’t moot, saying Hecox’s plans about whether to play sports have changed before and may change again. Justice Sonia Sotomayor challenged this, saying Hurst was asking the court to “force an unwilling plaintiff … to continue prosecuting this case.” Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson said “it’s a little odd that a defendant would not want a case dismissed.”

Hurst argued that Idaho’s law wasn’t about excluding transgender people, saying the Legislature there instead “wanted to keep women’s sports women-only.” He also said testosterone doesn’t reliably suppress performance.

“Sports are assigned by sex because sex is what matters in sports,” Hurst said.

Justice Amy Coney Barrett asked whether Hurst was arguing to allow separation by biological sex of even 6-year-olds in sports. Hurst replied that even at that age, boys have a small advantage, but co-ed sports could be an option.

The West Virginia case was filed by the mother of Becky Pepper-Jackson, then a transgender sixth grader, back in 2021. Judges blocked enforcement of the Mountain State’s law against the student.

“In West Virginia’s telling, it passed [its law] to ‘save women’s sports’ by staving off an impending tidal wave of ‘bigger, faster, and stronger males’ from stealing championships, scholarships, and opportunities from female athletes,” the student’s lawyers wrote. “In reality, West Virginia’s law banned exactly one sixth-grade transgender girl from participating on her school’s cross-country and track-and-field teams with her friends.”

Her attorneys wrote that the sports she’s participated in are non-contact, and that she “has received puberty-delaying medication and gender-affirming estrogen that allowed her to undergo a hormonal puberty typical of girls, with all the physiological musculoskeletal characteristics of cisgender girls and none of the testosterone-induced characteristics of cisgender boys.”

They wrote that she “wants to play sports for the same reasons most kids do: to have fun and make friends as part of a team.” She’s participated in post-season shot put and discus, “where her performance is well within the range of cisgender girls her age,” they wrote.

Lawyers defending the West Virginia law, though, wrote that “male athletes identifying as female are increasingly competing in women’s sports, erasing the opportunities Title IX ensured.” They wrote that “women and girls have lost places on sports teams, surrendered spots on championship podiums, and suffered injuries competing against bigger, faster, and stronger males.”

Michael R. Williams, West Virginia’s solicitor general, said the state’s law “is indifferent to gender identity because sports are indifferent to gender identity,” and said “we don’t have an actual transgender exclusion.” He also argued that Title IX defines sex as biological sex because that was the understanding at the time Congress passed it.

Barrett suggested West Virginia’s arguments could be used by a state to argue for separate math classrooms if it produced a study saying women’s presence in calculus was holding men back. Gorsuch made similar arguments.

Federal Intervention

In both cases Tuesday, the federal government defended the state laws. Hashim M. Mooppan, the U.S. principal deputy solicitor general, said Title IX regulations “say you can separate based on sex … the circulating testosterone levels are just legally irrelevant under the regulations.” He also said transgender women aren’t “being excluded from participating on the boys team.”

During and after the oral arguments, hundreds of proponents for trans athletes and opponents held dueling rallies right next to each other outside the Supreme Court, each with their own sound systems and speakers. Education Secretary Linda McMahon was among those who spoke in favor of the state bans.

Education Secretary Linda McMahon speaks outside the US Supreme Court as justices hear arguments in challenges to state bans on transgender athletes in women’s sports.

Photo by Oliver Contreras / AFP via Getty Images

In her remarks, McMahon praised a legal organization, Alliance Defending Freedom, that was defending the bans, and touted the Trump administration’s actions to “restore common sense by returning sanity to the sexes.” She also criticized the Biden administration’s regulations that declared that sex-based discrimination, which is barred under Title IX, includes discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity. A federal judge vacated those Title IX regulations in early 2025.

“In just four years, the Biden Administration reversed decades of progress, twisting the law to argue that ‘sex’ is not defined by objective biological reality, but by the subjective notion of ‘gender identity,’’’ she said. (The Title IX regulations took effect in August 2024 but federal courts had already blocked them in dozens of states.)

McMahon added that while the Supreme Court deliberates, the administration will continue enforcing Title IX “as it was intended, rooted in biological reality to ensure fairness, safety, and equal access to education programs for women and girls across our nation.”

“As President Trump has made clear, America is in its Golden Age, one where female students and athletes have equal access to fair and safe competitions and female-only intimate spaces, free from divisive and discriminatory ideologies,” she said.

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January 13, 2026
She Reimagined Dolls for Her daughter — and Defied Stereotypes About Indigenous Women – The 74

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When Cara Romero’s daughter was 11, she became interested in dolls. Romero, who is an enrolled member of the Chemehuevi Indian Tribe in Southern California, began to think about doll culture more deeply and what it can convey to the next generation.

Romero’s husband grew up collecting G.I. Joes, and her mother-in-law had her own Victorian-style porcelain doll collection. For Romero, though, her daughter’s doll phase reminded her of the Native American dolls she grew up seeing at truck stops along I-40.

The dolls were often dressed in plastic pony beads and fake buckskin that parroted the Native American Halloween costumes she knew all too well as dehumanizing stereotypes. So Romero, who is a photographer and artist, set out to create a series of photos that broke down these tropes.

Each photograph in the “First American Doll” series features a life-sized doll box that she designed and crafted, where she poses the women with objects that represent their families, traditions and unique stories.

She wanted her daughter to be proud of her heritage. “I come from a community where women are allowed to have a voice, allowed to be really strong,” she said. “So [I was] wanting to pass down good self esteem and a strong sense of self and identity,” she said. “That’s what we aim to do as moms.”

She started the series with artist and powwow dancer Wakeah Jhane, who is of Kiowa, Comanche and Blackfeet descent. While the Plains Tribes that she is from are the models for stereotypical dolls and costumes, Romero’s photograph captures her intricate buckskin regalia, which was made by her family. Also on display are her moccasins and a fan.

“You can see the stark contrast between what she’s wearing and the Halloween costumes that people portray Plains people as,” she said. “I really wanted to kind of own it and be like, “You guys even have this wrong.’”

She has since published nine photographs for the series, the most recent featuring Fawn Douglas, an artist, activist and enrolled member of the Las Vegas Paiute Tribe, who is posed with handcrafted baskets and a gourd rattle made by her family. The box is bordered by a Las Vegas playing card motif.

Cara Romero (Getty Images)

The current day symbolism and high fashion lighting communicates that these women are also contemporary, Romero said. “When artwork, and specifically photography, is devoid of modern context, it does something psychologically, it perpetuates [this idea] that we’re gone and only living in history.”

Naming each of the pieces after the models was also meant to humanize Indigenous women in a way that they weren’t in historical photos. “A lot of times in the ethnographic photographs, they didn’t even say their name,” she said. “We don’t know who they were.”

Some of the photographs from the series are currently traveling the country as part of Romero’s first solo museum exhibition, titled: “Panûpünüwügai (Living Light).” They will be on display next at the Phoenix Art Museum in Arizona starting in February.

This story was originally reported by Jessica Kutz of The 19th. Meet Jessica and read more of their reporting on gender, politics and policy.

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December 24, 2025
WEEKEND READING: A thousand days of silence: reclaiming education through localisation for Afghan women

This blog was kindly authored by Naimat Zafary, PhD student at The University of Sussex and a former Afghan Chevening Scholar.

As I mark my fifth year in UK higher education, a journey that began with a Chevening Scholarship and an MA at the Institute of Development Studies before leading to my PhD in the School of Global Studies at the University of Sussex, a single, recurring image encapsulates a profound contrast.

From my study window on campus, I watch the vibrant flow of students: a tide of ambition pouring into and out of lecture halls. In a silent, personal ritual, I often count them. Invariably, I find more young women than men, a sight that swells me with pride to be part of an institution that offers equal and abundant opportunities to female students.

Yet, this everyday scene instantly transports me to my home of Afghanistan, where this picture is hauntingly absent. For nearly three years – around 1,050 days – the Taliban has barred Afghan girls and women from their fundamental right to higher education. Their university campuses, once symbols of hope, are now forbidden ground.

Beyond internationalisation

The start of the academic year is a time of new beginnings for UK universities. There is a mood of anticipation, proudly announcing numbers of new starters and, on my own diverse campus, a commitment to internationalisation. Students arrive from across the world, a myriad of stories behind each of them. For some, a struggle, for others, lifelong dreams of individuals and families.

If we are lucky, we will share some of these experiences and perspectives with the people around us. We will define our possibilities differently as a result. This focus on global reach is commendable and a deep privilege. We are – we become – international.

But I ask myself a sharper question too. What of those who do not, cannot travel? How do we consider the community which includes the missing, the trapped?

So, as I look across campus, I see these faces too. Will institutions that are committed and measured in part in relation to the sustainable development goals – every one of which is behind – take a step to localise, to go to those who cannot come to them?

British higher education has a long history of outreach. Many of its now great universities began as an effort to take learning and opportunity to provinces where it was absent, or to include within its potential those who, at one time, were told education was not for them.

That widening participation agenda is now under strain at home and abroad. If you measure the outcomes only of those blessed with an environment and the support to succeed, you implant a bias away from risk. If you effectively close off the means of access, the hopeful will turn away. Participation can narrow as well as widen. In some cases, participation can stall completely – those desperate to continue their dreams, whose voices are screaming to be heard, and who are simply waiting for a chance?

Who will answer the call?

In the worst of times, those who step forward, demonstrate they care and – despite their own challenges – stand against this injustice are living the most profound values of education.

Here again, I look out at my campus at The University of Sussex with pride, and I believe there are lessons for others too.

It begins with leadership and with kind-hearted teams, but also a desire to turn feeling into action. In this case, despite headwinds of practical barriers, the university has undertaken a pilot and has awarded online distance learning master’s degree scholarships for a small group of talented Afghan women and girls.

The inspiration for this initiative was born out of a stark contrast. As female Afghan Chevening scholars walked across the Sussex graduation stage with pride, in Afghanistan, not a single woman could enter a university, let alone a graduation ceremony. I longed for those with the potential of taking action to hear the voices of Afghan women and somehow open a door, even for just a few.

Developing an outreach programme in such a sensitive context isn’t easy. Universities have their own urgent challenges close to home, and the many demands they face don’t pause while they innovate in global education. But principled leaders took the challenge of the absence of women in higher education a world away to their own core, and recognised that this too was their business.

Finding a possible solution took time: more than two years of proposals; assessing the situation; back-and-forth communication; and ensuring we were always working in line with advice on ensuring the safety of participating students. It was modest, but it matters beyond words.

The logic was beautifully simple and necessary: if Afghan women are banned from stepping into the higher education arena, then higher education must step into their own room. This is a practice the Western world embraced during the pandemic; we simply need to apply it now to find a light in the darkness.

An undefeated hope

The proof of this need was instantaneous. In early July 2025, the University of Sussex’s announcement went live. Within the first 48 hours, more than eight hundred women and women sent an inquiry and applied for the scholarships.

That response sent a clear, undeniable message of a thirst and love for education, of persistent talent, eligibility, and an undefeated hope for the future. And now it begins. The five talented women awarded these scholarships have started on the first of these courses with an unwavering commitment.

One of the awardees described her gratitude this way:

As an Afghan woman achieving this milestone under such challenging circumstances has been both difficult and deeply meaningful. I am committed to making the most of this opportunity and to using the knowledge and skills I gain to contribute toward strengthening and supporting our fragile communities.

These students are proof that Afghan women are not defeated even in this brutal hour. They may have to learn behind legal bars for now, but they believe in a better future, they are determined to serve their community and contribute to wider society — given the chance, they will change their lives and the lives of those around them.

Deeds not words

To my colleagues and friends in UK higher education, I humbly say this. Our institutions are built on the foundational motto of “leaving no one behind” – no one, not even the women whose doors are bolted but whose spirits still crave learning.

I profoundly hope the UKhigher education community will look closely at the successful case of the University of Sussex, draw on the experience of this pilot and follow its lead. One programme could become many. A single voice could become a chorus.

Afghan girls and women are navigating one of the most catastrophic times in their history. The education of women is core to the UN Sustainable Development Goals for good reason. Those who step up now, who provide a lifeline through education in this moment of darkness, will not only be remembered – they will be helping to shape the very future of Afghanistan. As the suffragists once chanted in this country, this is a time for Deeds Not Words.

I ask each of you not to write off hope. A dear friend shared a poem with me, which is much loved across this country. It was written by the great War poet Siegfried Sassoon at a time of despair, but it continues to move people because it defiantly imagines a time of release and redemption.

Everyone suddenly burst out singing;

And I was filled with such delight As prisoned birds must find in freedom…

My heart was shaken with tears; and horror Drifted away … O, but Everyone

Was a bird; and the song was wordless; the singing will never be done.

There are times a university keeps hope alive, where a pilot programme is a flame visible across the world. It is the promise of a better future through the empowerment of those who wish desperately to build it.

A good deed can be multiplied. If Afghan women students cannot come to us, let us join together as a band of scholars and go to them.

If any university colleagues would be interested in understanding more about the Sussex pilot to offer online postgraduate access to Afghan women, please contact [email protected].

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November 8, 2025
TCU Dissolves Women and Gender Studies, Race and Ethnic Studies Departments

Texas Christian University Texas Christian University will shutter its women and gender studies department and comparative race and ethnic studies department at the end of this academic year, folding both programs into the English department in a move faculty members say reflects the institution’s response to political pressure.

The decision, announced earlier this month, comes as higher education institutions nationwide face mounting scrutiny over programs related to diversity, equity and inclusion—particularly those focusing on gender and race. TCU officials cited low enrollment as the primary rationale, though faculty members say the timing suggests otherwise.

Discussions about restructuring or renaming the departments began in February. Those conversations centered on how to address external pressure against anything perceived as related to DEI initiatives—pressure that has intensified since the Trump administration began efforts to eliminate such programs.

Faculty members report that university messaging has been inconsistent. Last spring, they were told the two departments would merge but could not include “race” or “gender” in the combined department’s name. By August, officials indicated the merged department could retain those terms. The October announcement revealed all three units would be absorbed into the English department, which will retain its original name.

University data shows undergraduate enrollment in both departments remains minimal this fall: two seniors are majoring in women and gender studies, while nine students major in comparative race and ethnic studies—five seniors, three juniors and one sophomore.

Women and gender studies at TCU traces its roots to 1979, when professors Jean Giles-Sims and Priscilla Tate began advocating for such a program. The university formally launched it in 1994. The comparative race and ethnic studies program emerged in 2017 amid student concerns about campus climate, with its founding director telling media the program would help foster cultural change and attract a more diverse student body.

In his email to English faculty, Provost Floyd Wormley Jr.said that the restructuring aims to “ensure a more efficient and effective use of faculty and administrative resources” while maintaining fiscal sustainability.

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October 26, 2025
Shutting Women Out of Preferred Courses Sets Them Back

Getting shut out of a preferred course can have lasting negative effects on incoming female students, a recent working paper found.

The paper, published by the National Bureau of Economic Research, tracked first-year students at Purdue University who couldn’t take their first-choice classes in 2018 because of a surge in enrollment. Incoming students had to rank their course preferences; 49 percent got into all the courses they wanted, but 51 percent were shut out of a course.

The study found that female students locked out of a course were 7.5 percent less likely to graduate within four years than women who got to take their desired courses. Their cumulative college GPAs were also slightly lower—by 0.05 points—than those of female students who took their preferred classes their first semester. Women locked out of a course were 5 percent less likely to major in STEM fields and even earned about 3.5 percent less in salary after they graduated, compared to female students who took their top-choice courses their first year.

The working paper found no statistically significant effects on male students.

“Our estimates suggest that reducing course shutouts, particularly for STEM courses, can be an effective way to improve female-student outcomes,” co-author Kevin Mumford, an associate dean and professor at Purdue’s Mitch Daniels School of Business, told The Wall Street Journal.

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October 22, 2025
IVF and the Leadership Gap for Women (opinion)
After a 20-year career in higher education, including roles as a chief academic officer and faculty member, I left to have a child. I was one step away from a presidency on the higher ed career ladder, and in fact I had written my dissertation on what gets in the way of women moving into college presidencies. Yet it was not until I finally met my life partner and had the opportunity, in my 40s, to start a family that I understood how fully the higher ed career deck is still stacked against those seeking to have children, and especially those seeking to have children in nontraditional ways—largely women, LGBTQIA+ folks and anyone facing a difficult pregnancy, in vitro fertilization, adoption or fostering process.

In the United States, 2.6 percent of all births—95,860 babies in 2023—result from IVF, a time-consuming, costly and physically and emotionally challenging process. The percentage for women academics may be even higher, given their relatively high education levels, socioeconomic status and pressure to delay childbearing for academic careers. According to Pew, 56 percent of people with graduate degrees have gone through or know someone who has undergone IVF or other assisted reproduction.

The literature has well documented how the academy has been created by men and is designed to fit their needs and their bodies. Women who have sought professorships or academic leadership positions have, historically, needed to conform to rules written for men’s life cycles. Articles such as Carmen Armenti’s classic “May Babies and Posttenure Babies” speak to women’s attempts to give birth at the end of the academic year and after earning tenure. The tenure clock illustrates this issue well—the usual seven years in which a newly hired assistant professor has time to sufficiently publish and obtain tenure largely coincide with women’s most fertile years. Many forward-thinking institutions such as the University of California system have been addressing this issue by stopping the tenure clock for childbirth and related family formation. It is a step in the right direction that all colleges and universities should consider.

But what happens when the usual challenges of pregnancy and childbirth are compounded by infertility, miscarriage and the sometimes years-long process of IVF?

I met my husband during the pandemic, and we married the next year. Both of us in our 40s and having always wanted a child but neither having met the right partner, we quickly found ourselves going down the IVF route. At the time, I had completed a one-year executive interim role and was on the job hunt and doing part-time remote teaching, and this situation proved fortuitous.

I had no idea how grueling the IVF process would be—multiple rounds of more than a month at a time of hormone pills; nightly self-administered injections for weeks on end; weekly doctor visits, blood draws and ultrasounds—and at the end of each round, a day surgery under anesthesia to retrieve eggs. Several iterations of this, followed by more of a similar process to prepare the body for embryo transfer. The journey is physically and emotionally exhausting, time-consuming, and logistically challenging. It can also be incredibly expensive, with the medications and surgeries costing into the tens of thousands for those whose health insurance does not cover it.

My husband and I had a number of factors helping us on this journey. We had built a supportive network of family and friends. We were fortunate that I was less sick than many women are on these medications. Finally, we were privileged to have insurance (through my husband’s job, which is not in higher ed) that paid for the majority of our treatments. Due to working part-time and remotely, I had the flexibility I needed to take naps, wear comfortable clothes that fit my bloated belly without having to reveal my family-forming status to anyone at work and generally have the privacy I needed during a challenging time.

Other women who work full-time in-person during this process navigate a daunting gauntlet of frequent doctor appointments, exhaustion and sickness at work, while trying to hide a body that can look pregnant before it is. Not to mention that few people fully understand the process, and telling a little can lead you down an uncomfortable path of revealing a lot. Because everything is timed to the menstrual cycle, seemingly innocent questions inevitably lead to awkward conversations. It’s therefore hard to share what you’re going through or ask for support at work at the time you need it most.

And then there are the chemical pregnancies and miscarriages that can happen, and did for us. Grieving for both parents is exacerbated by the isolation and privacy of the whole process. Some companies and higher ed institutions, such as Tufts University in Massachusetts, now offer bereavement leave for miscarriage, something that happens in 10 to 20 percent of pregnancies but is still rarely talked about. All institutions throughout higher ed should offer similar leave.

During this journey, I was also interviewing for full-time jobs, and I was hired into a senior leadership position. My husband and I were taking a break from the exhausting process at that point and the opportunity was once-in-a-lifetime, and so we picked up and moved two states away. My husband’s job had gone remote, giving us the flexibility we needed for my career. We wagered that if I stayed in a part-time role too much longer, it would be increasingly difficult to climb back into a full-time position. The stigma around a résumé gap is alive and well in higher education, with little understanding that this gap often reflects people’s (frequently women’s) time away for family and other care-taking needs, rather than their work experience or abilities. Yet, even when I’ve tried to explain to search committees that I’ve led how discriminatory it can be to overly focus on résumé gaps, faculty and staff often have looked askance at me. This is something else that needs to change.

My husband and I waited almost a year before doing our next embryo transfer. I settled into the job, we settled into our home, we finally had a post-COVID celebration of our marriage. And then I was pregnant! Sadly, I miscarried again toward the end of my first trimester. I powered through at work, serving as a chief academic officer and supervising 200 people while trying to juggle meds, doctor’s appointments, exhaustion and then loss. I read students’ names at a stadium-sized graduation ceremony soon after a miscarriage.

It became clear to me over the following months that the stress and lack of flexibility of a senior role would not lend itself to a last chance at a healthy pregnancy. It was a difficult decision to leave, but also one that I had no doubts about once made. Within weeks we were pregnant again, this time successfully so with a beautiful baby girl who is now a year old. It was not an easy pregnancy, and our daughter likely would not be here had I stayed in my role and not been able to rest as much as I did.

Since her birth, I have launched a higher ed editing and consulting business, resumed teaching part-time, and otherwise adjusted to life as a new mother. For me, leaving higher ed senior leadership was a deliberate choice. I needed more flexibility and control over my own time to be able to care for myself and my child properly. I may or may not return someday to that leadership pathway, and that door may or may not be open to me if I attempt to do so. I’ve learned, however, that to address the question my dissertation asked—Why don’t we have more women in presidencies?—we need to better understand and respond to the many women (and many men and nonbinary folks) who find themselves going through similar family-formation challenges across higher education.
- First, we need to offer more flexibility—remote work, flexible hours, the option for extended parental leaves for new parents and foster parents.
- Second, we need to consider not only fully paid leave under the Family and Medical Leave Act for childbirth and parental bonding, but also paid medical benefits for IVF as well as similar support for adoption and fostering.
- Third, we need to formalize bereavement leave for miscarriage.
- Fourth, we need to destigmatize the career gap, so that those who leave would have the opportunity to return.
- Fifth, we need to fairly compensate those who assume the work of colleagues who take FMLA for any care-taking reason.
- Lastly, we need to change the higher ed culture to one that understands and supports family formation in all its iterations, not just traditional pregnancy with traditional medical leaves.
I recognize my privilege in being able to leave my job—privilege that enabled me to have a child when so many before me without the same economic resources have not been able to. My situation may seem like an outlier to those who are in their 20s or early 30s or who have had relatively easy and healthy pregnancies. But I’m sure that my story rings true for those who have delayed childbearing for their academic careers and then faced the rigors of IVF, or for people of any age who have faced infertility or more difficult pregnancies. For those LGBTQIA+ and other folks who go through the egg/sperm donation process and IVF and surrogacy. For couples and singles who may adopt or foster and face needs for legal meetings and other child-related time off that institutions do not always provide.

Higher ed has taught me so much about antiracism, feminism, LGBTQIA+ rights and other inclusive practices. However, higher ed writ large doesn’t offer the kinds of paid leave and flexibility needed for all employees to succeed at both parenting and work.

Higher ed is losing women with executive leadership potential. The majority of undergraduate and graduate students are women. Yet only 37 percent of full-time faculty are women. Only 33 percent of college presidents are women. Women melt away for a host of reasons. But this former chief academic officer, one step away from a presidency on the career ladder, left the executive pathway because it was the only way I could do so and have a healthy pregnancy and a healthy child.

As long as higher ed makes having a child versus having an academic career a zero-sum choice for many women, it shouldn’t be a surprise that we still have so few women in senior leadership. When the answer becomes “yes, have both” at institutions across the board is when we might start to see the numbers change.
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October 14, 2025
Black Women Reach Record State Legislative Representation Despite Persistent Gaps at Higher Levels

Black women achieved record-high representation in state legislatures and made historic gains in the U.S. Senate in 2025, according to a new report tracking their political progress over the past decade.

Senators Lisa Blunt Rochester of Delaware and Angela Alsobrooks of Maryland.The “Black Women in American Politics 2025” report, released by Higher Heights Leadership Fund and the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University, documents significant advances for Black women in elected office while highlighting continued underrepresentation at the highest levels of government.

Black women now hold 401 state legislative seats nationwide, representing 5.4% of all state legislators and 16.2% of all women state legislators. This marks a 67.1% increase from 240 seats in 2014, when the organizations began tracking these statistics.

The most dramatic change occurred in the U.S. Senate, where two Black women now serve simultaneously for the first time in American history. Angela Alsobrooks of Maryland and Lisa Blunt Rochester of Delaware both won open seats in the 2024 election, doubling Black women’s representation in the upper chamber.

“This year also marks the first time in history that two Black women serve together in the United States Senate,” Alsobrooks and Blunt Rochester wrote in the report’s foreword. “That milestone is not a coincidence; it’s a culmination. It’s the result of investments made, barriers challenged, and generations of Black women who refused to be sidelined.”

At the congressional level, 29 Black women currently serve as voting members, including 27 in the House and two in the Senate. This represents nearly double the 15 Black women who served in Congress when tracking began in 2014. All current Black congresswomen are Democrats except for the two senators.

The 2024 election cycle was particularly significant because Vice President Kamala Harris became the first Black woman to head a major-party presidential ticket. Though Harris lost the election, her 107-day campaign raised $81 million in its first 24 hours and nearly doubled Democratic voter enthusiasm, according to the report.

Black women also made notable gains in municipal leadership. Three new Black women became mayors of major cities: Cherelle Parker in Philadelphia, Sharon Tucker in Fort Wayne, and Barbara Lee in Oakland. Eight Black women now serve as mayors of the nation’s 100 most populous cities, matching their proportion of the U.S. population.

However, significant representation gaps persist at higher levels. No Black woman has ever served as governor, and Black women remain underrepresented in statewide executive offices. Currently, 10 Black women serve in such positions nationwide, including four lieutenant governors, two attorneys general, two secretaries of state, one auditor, and one controller.

The report notes that 34 states have never elected a Black woman to statewide executive office. Since 2014, only 25 Black women have ever held such positions across 17 states.

“In our nation’s 249-year history, a Black woman has never served as governor of a state or as president of the United States,” the senators wrote. “That reality is a stark reminder that our work is not done.”

The growth in Black women’s representation has occurred almost exclusively among Democratic officeholders. The report documents only seven Black Republican women state legislators nationwide and notes that all Black congresswomen are Democrats.

State-level representation varies significantly by region. Maryland leads with Black women comprising 18.6% of state legislators, followed by Georgia at 17.4%. Conversely, five states have no Black women in their legislatures: Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, North Dakota, and South Dakota.

The report also highlights institutional leadership gains. Twenty Black women now hold state legislative leadership positions, including six who lead their chambers. In Congress, Black women hold over 22% of House Democratic leadership positions.

Looking ahead, the organizations identify opportunities for continued growth. Virginia Lieutenant Governor Winsome Earle-Sears, a Republican, is running for governor in 2025 and could become the first Black woman governor in U.S. history if successful. Additionally, over 200 statewide offices will be up for election in 2026.

This marks the eighth iteration of the annual report series, which began in 2014 and has been published in 2015, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2021, and 2023. The comprehensive analysis tracks Black women’s political participation across federal, state, and local levels, providing the most detailed picture available of their representation in American politics.

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July 31, 2025
Why gen-Z men are turning far right and women far left (Money & Macro-Dr. Joeri Schasfoort)

Higher Education Inquirer : Why gen-Z men are turning far right and women far left (Money & Macro-Dr. Joeri Schasfoort)

Why gen-Z men are turning far right and women far left (Money & Macro-Dr. Joeri Schasfoort)

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June 18, 2025
For women athletes, world recognition is a long time coming

Last year was arguably the best year for women’s sports yet.

According to data analysis company S&P Global, in-person attendance and viewership were higher, with women’s professional sports sponsorships increasing by 22% since 2023. According to UN Women Australia, globally, there has been a lack of interest in women’s sports. But it seems that they might finally be getting the attention they deserve.

To find out what is driving this change in attitude towards women’s sports, I interviewed 10 women athletes across high school, university, and coaching.

Historically, women’s sports have not gotten the recognition that they deserve. However, during 2024, women’s collegiate basketball had a significant increase in viewership compared to the previous year. The Final Four game in 2024 was a showdown between two players from two U.S. universities: Caitlin Clark of the University of Iowa and Paige Bueckers of the University of Connecticut. The game drew in a peak audience of 16.1 million, according to an article in Sports Illustrated.

Women’s media coverage has tripled since 2019. At this rate, if coverage trends continue, women’s share of coverage could reach 20% by the end of this year, according to Women.org, an organization within the United Nations devoted to gender equality and the empowerment of women.

Gender parity in sports

The Paris Olympic and Paralympic Games were officially the first to see 50:50 coverage in gender equality.

Avery Elliot, a track and field athlete from the University of Pennsylvania, attended the Paris Olympics as a spectator and said she noticed the change – more social media presence and sponsorships, particularly highlighting women of color, especially in women’s gymnastics, spurred by the popularity and success of U.S. athletes Simone Biles and Jordan Chiles and Brazilian Rebeca Andrade.

The lack of media coverage of women has always played a role in the lack of recognition that they receive. Lanae Carrington, a track star at Lehigh University in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania, said that in the past, women athletes would get dismissed for getting a low number of views or for the belief that women’s games were not as entertaining as those of men. “Overall, women are making a stronger impact in the entertainment industry, whether that’s more highlight reels on TikTok or screen time on TV,” Carrington said. “It’s finally becoming normalized.”

One of the hardest things to deal with as an athlete is a lack of support, whether from the media, in person or on the sidelines.

Brianna Gautier, a volleyball and basketball sensation at Neumann University in Pennsylvania, said it is hard to play a game where you’re not going to have a full house. “But it’s kind of helped me learn to just play for myself instead of waiting for people to show up and relying on that to bring some type of energy because I feel like it starts within you and your teammates,” she said.

Play for yourself first

As a track and field athlete, I have seen this firsthand. It is unfortunate to see people walk away after the men are finished competing. But I found that when you start showing up for yourself with energy, success comes rolling in. Gautier has embraced the idea of playing for herself and nobody else.

It used to be that at Neumann, people would attend the men’s basketball games but never stay afterward to support the women. She also expressed the importance of the support of NBA players such as Steph Curry, who came out to watch several women’s Stanford basketball games in 2023. Gautier said that people think to themselves that if their favorite male basketball players are tuning in to watch women’s sports, it must be worthwhile.

Carrington said parents also need to support their daughters in athletics. “This is important because many girls don’t have parents who encourage them to play more traditionally masculine sports, such as basketball and soccer,” she said.

Most of the women I interviewed commented on the change in the WNBA as the catalyst for the change in women’s sports..

Liz Spagnolo is a soccer player at Tower Hill High School in the U.S. state of Delaware who appreciates the opportunities she now has. “Women in sports is big for us because based on women 100 years ago, we wouldn’t be expected to play sports, or be expected to do something like cheer,” Spagnolo said.

The Caitlin Clark effect

Arianna Montgomery, an athlete at The Tatnall School, the private school in Delaware that I also attend, said she appreciates the change in women’s basketball.

“It’s gotten a lot more fame, definitely more college sports have gotten a lot more fame,” Montgomery said. “I think women’s games are starting to become more popular. People are starting to look more towards women’s sports as well as men’s sports, and even since before, instead of men’s sports now, a decade ago, that wasn’t the case.”

Many of the women I spoke to said that a big contributor to the success of women’s sports is due to the Catlin Clark effect. The Caitlin Clark effect is a term that was created after her record-breaking seasons playing women’s basketball at the University of Iowa during the years of 2023-2024.

As a result, she has become the all-time leading scorer in college basketball before entering the WNBA, and has reportedly signed sponsorship deals worth more than $11 million.

Ruth Hiller, a lacrosse coach at my school said that are a number of successful women athletes that young women can now look up to, including tennis superstars Venus and Serena Williams and Alex Morgan, the former captain of the U.S. women’s soccer team, women’s tennis pioneer Billie Jean King and Charlotte North, a professional lacrosse player who broke the all-time goals record in college lacrosse.

Women now rack up medals and points

Daija Lampkin, my track and field coach, pointed to Alison Felix, who won more medals than any other U.S. track and field athlete, and tennis superstar Serena Williams.

It is important, Lampkin said, that women support women. “Our body is critical, and some women are self-conscious that they are going to be muscular,” Lampkin said. “It can tear down your confidence. It’s not talked about in sports how women look at their bodies. People tear down Serena Williams and her body all the time, but look at where she is and how much she has accomplished”.

I have been participating in sports since I was 3 years old, when my parents signed me up for gymnastics. I run track and field and am a runner, jumper and hurdler. I began training for track and field competitions at the age of 8, and my dad has been my coach since the very beginning.

In my experience, my father was instrumental in encouraging me to participate in dance and gymnastics growing up, while also encouraging me to run track and play basketball and soccer for fun.

With opportunity comes pressure, and Gautier said it is important for girls not to put too much pressure on themselves. “When you are an athlete, you tend to feel that you have to perform a certain way to be successful or please everyone else, but I feel you kind of get blinded by the fact that you are doing it for yourself,” she said.

Questions to consider:

1. Why have women not gotten the same recognition and pay as male athletes in sports?

2. What does “parity” mean when it comes to gender in sports?

3. Should there be any differentiation when it comes to gender in sports and why?

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June 2, 2025