Terrific piece in Ohio State's student paper The Lantern today by Briony Clare.
According to Census Bureau reports, women are earning degrees at higher rates than men.
I have a theory about why this happens, after the jump.
According to the story,About 33 percent of women aged 25 to 29 had at least a bachelor's degree in 2007, compared with 26 percent of men.
Although there are still more women than men earning degrees from Ohio State, the gender gap is less than the national average.
"Ohio State does not have a huge discrepancy compared to a lot of other places," said Martha Garland, vice provost for enrollment management and dean of undergraduate studies. Garland said OSU's enrollment ratio of males to females is close to 50-50, also a deviation from more disproportionate national figures.
Garland says there isn't a "huge discrepancy" at Ohio State? At Ohio State, since 2001, the percentage of women completing a degree in four years is a whopping 21 points higher than men, at 50% to 29%.
The article discusses some possible reasons..."Nationwide there are scientists and scholars trying to figure it out," Garland said. "Girls always tended to be better students and are able to adapt better to school environments."
...but my suggestion to researchers is to look at literacy rates. Here in Ohio, most of the data I've looked at over the years shows girls k-12 scoring much higher on average in reading than boys. There are plenty of environmental factors to explain this, and there are lots of other possible theories that could explain why men leave college and enter the work force.
But I think literacy levels have a great deal to do with it. Culturally it's more acceptable for girls to read well, to focus on schoolwork, and to succeed in academics at the expense of sports and other extracurriculars. These differences are a significant factor in college success.
I suppose, although I haven't studied the data, that the war might have something to do with it as well? What do you think?
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Why are women earning degrees at higher rates than men?
Friday, November 16, 2007
Beat Mich Again... and again... and again...
Some humor at UM's expense, courtesy of the DDN.
Q: What's the difference between a University of Michigan fan and a carp?
A: One is a bottom-feeding, scum sucker, and the other is a fish.
Q: What kind of car does Jim Tressel own?
A: Lloyd Carr
Q: Why should the University of Michigan change its name to the "Opossums"?
A: Because they play dead at home and get killed on the road.
Q: What do you get when you have a basement full of Michigan fans?
A: A Whine Cellar.
Q: Did you hear about the power outage at the University of Michigan library?
A: Forty students were stuck on the escalator for three hours.
It was reported that the Michigan Football Coach Lloyd Carr will only be dressing 20 players for the Ohio State game ... the rest of the players will have to dress themselves!
Q: How many UM students does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
A: One, but he gets a degree in electrical engineering for it.
Tuesday, July 03, 2007
Strickland keeps tuition down
For the last several years Ohio college students have seen tuition increases year after year.
Good for Strickland on two counts: one, for vetoing special ed vouchers (a horrible idea on several levels), and two for holding the line on tuition. OSU's The Lantern says it best: "Strickland Stops Tuition Increase." And unlike previous Republican attempts to hold down tuition, this wasn't done by simply holding universities hostage and imposing a tuition cap which the universities were forced to end-around in other ways, like a "freshman surcharge." This time it was done through additional funding.
Given the hefty tuition hikes from the last several years, affordable tuition at Ohio's state universities seemed like a pipe dream. Saturday, Gov. Ted Strickland signed that dream into law.
Ohio's two-year, $52.3 billion budget calls for a $350 million increase in funding to pay for a two-year freeze in undergraduate tuition for state universities and community colleges.
Monday, April 02, 2007
Lewis refuses to sing Gators' praises
I like it.
Ron Lewis refuses to sing the Gators' praises. Yeah, they're good. That's about it.
ESPN's Gene Wojciechowski: ...Lewis didn't actually say the Buckeyes were great, although he did agree with the description. And while several of his teammates showered the Gators with compliments, Lewis stopped short of genuflecting.
"They're a good team to me," he said. "That's all I can say about it."
Lewis later qualified his grading system, saying "good" was at the top of his personal scale, unless you were talking about Michael Jordan's 1995-96 Chicago Bulls, who were great. Whatever.
Anyway, you have to give Lewis credit for having the stones to express polite, public indifference about Florida mania...
Should be fun!
Saturday, March 31, 2007
Buckeyes Win!!!
67-60.
Bring on Florida!!!!
My only concern: Where was Daquan Cook tonight? I have been hearing from my insiders that Cook isn't happy. Tonight won't help.
But a nice ring would help. And knowing that he's going to start next year? Let's hope. We need him back, and happy.
Saturday, March 24, 2007
Final Four!!!
Way to go Buckeyes!!! 92-76.
A dominant performance against Memphis. Thad made all the right moves in this one, and Lighty continues to develop as a force in the tournament. The story again is the role playing by Lighty, Hunter, Harris, and Cook, in support of the dominance of Conley, Lewis and Oden. The studs doing their jobs, the rest supporting with a great team effort.
Will it be UNC or Georgetown? My bracket says Georgetown, but my gut says UNC.
Saturday, March 17, 2007
Whew!
I had given up on the Bucks in this one. Thank goodness they survived. Conley and Lewis were awesome.
What was cool was that they tied it and played overtime without Oden. Conley played great. Oden will go to the NBA next year, so they need to be able to win without him anyway. I have spoken to a couple of, you might call them insiders, who tell me Oden is gone. Not that you need an insider to figure that out.
Way to go Xavier. X had them definitely on the ropes. I wish the Bucks could have beaten someone else.
Thursday, February 08, 2007
Buckeye Recruiting Class
Brief post on the Buckeyes crop of signees.
Actually, just a post on one of the signees: Brandon Saine.
I am a former HS track coach and I still go to a few meets every year. I saw Brandon run the 100 and the 400 last year. His speed is legit, and freaky.
He took the baton in a 1600m relay I watched. His team was behind, and the runner finishing his lap in from of Brandon's team stumbled and fell as he made the handoff. Brandon took the baton a second after, leaped over the boy laying on the track, got pushed into the second or third lane, and proceeded to annihilate the field ahead of him.
He is WAY too big and strong to run a 400 like that. No pun intended, the guy is in-sanely fast. With stamina.
It's going be fun to see him in a Buckeye uniform. Even if they only have the 18th best class in the country.
Thursday, December 28, 2006
Thoughts Bobby Knight
Bobby Knight is about to break Dean Smith's coaching record. Should OSU fans care about their loyal alumus and his legacy?
Well, we might care if Knight cared about us or about his university.
Quick story:
When I attended OSU I had season tickets to the basketball games. I was pretty excited to see IU roll into town. Dom Tiberi was on hand at St. John to interview Bobby Knight. This was 20 years ago, so forgive me if I don't have the details exactly right. But I remember what Knight said pretty well.
Dom stood there with the stone-faced Knight. Coach, he said, you played here for Fred Taylor, won a national championship, played with Jerry Lucas and John Havlicek, played against Oscar Robertson in the national championship game, etc., etc. Has to feel really good to come back to St. John's Arena where you played as a collegian. Does it feel special to be here today?"
Knight: "Not really."
I've never forgotten that. How hard would it have been for Knight to just say, "yes, I have great memories of being here at Ohio State. But I coach for Indiana now and we're here to win."
Knight has always tried to give reporters exactly the opposite of what they're looking for. And that's fine. Often it's entertaining.
But in some cases it just means that you're a jerk. He poked his finger in the eye of every OSU grad that day.
It's because of that attitude that very few people will be rooting for Knight when he breaks the record of the always classy Dean Smith.
Saturday, November 25, 2006
Ohio State and Low Income Students: Ed Trust Report
The Dayton Daily has a pair of articles reporting on the findings of the Education Trust's rankings of "flagship" colleges.
The Education Trust is a good organization and they work on college affordability issues, so I think this study is meaningful. The study looks at one university in each state, it's "flagship" university.
The Dayton Daily articles show that OSU has done a good job of keeping minority students in school, but that in general OSU is becoming "richer and whiter."
There are two issue here that I think are worth noticing.
The first issue is this:Between 1995 and 2003, flagship schools increased their aid to families with incomes of $100,000 or more by 406 percent, the trust found. During that same time, aid for families earning $20,000 to $39,000 grew rose 54 percent.
"More colleges are using their financial aid to buy students who will help them climb the college rankings ladder ... instead of cushioning low-income families against spiraling costs," Haycock said.
This is one problem. Colleges like Ohio State have made greater efforts in recent years to improve access for middle- and upper middle-class students as federal aid diminishes and state funding is slashed. As tuition has been forced upwards, the universities have made efforts to attract top students. Meanwhile, lower income students without strong academic credentials have had to pursue other options, such as community colleges. In general, the doors to higher education are closing for a large number of low income students.
The second issue, then, is college affordability in general. This is a public policy issue at the state and federal level. Washington and state capitals have to get serious about funding students through grants and interest free loans AND about funding universities to keep costs down while maintaining the research programs that keep the economy moving. The universities in the Ed Trust report are generally large, important universities like Ohio State that have a mission to educate the citizens of the state but also to engage in high level and meaningful research in all academic fields. That is an expensive job, and when states and the federal government cut funding, or fail to maintain increases that are needed to improve facilities and programs, universities have to pass the costs on to students in the form of tuition increases. To keep tuition down, the state has to come through. Hopefully in Ohio, with a Democratic governor, that will happen.
But these articles make it clear that the universities also have to make some tough choices in order to continue to keep minority and low income students on campus.
I have one quibble with the Ed Trust study: by focusing on one unversity from each state, they are really insulting some universities, such as my other alma mater, Michigan State. The University of Michigan is the flagship university of Michigan? Sez who? Look, in Ohio, while there are several very large and important universities here, it's no contest to say that OSU is the flagship school. But in state's like Michigan, you can't pick just one. MSU has much more of a claim to being the state's major public university than Michigan, which although it receives state funding, is very much like a private university. Both are research giants, both have terrific programs, both are large and educate a large number of students. Trying to pick one is, well, not fair, and while it might not seem like a big deal to outsiders, I promise you that calling UM the "flagship" is bound to pick a fight. I'm just sayin'.
Friday, November 24, 2006
Minority PhD's: Graduation rates declining
My college daily, The Lantern, has an excellent website that allows geeks like me to keep up with what's going on at good ole OSU.
They had a pretty important story up recently about minority graduation rates in the graduate program, and how the graduation rates are falling sharply.
I think this story is indicative of how the GOP has neglected higher education in Ohio. College affordability in Ohio has taken a huge hit in the last 10 years and it will manifest itself in all kinds of ways, including graduation rates. People can't come do degree programs here if they can't afford it, and if the state isn't helping to pick up the cost.
Obviously there are lots of questions about these kinds of statistics, like how do foreign students get counted, are their graduation rates increasing or decreasing, and so on. But on the surface these numbers don't look good.
An excerpt after the jump.
UPDATE: see this post at Nookular Option about college affordability as well.This issue was brought to the attention of OSU President Karen A. Holbrook by Frank W. Hale Jr., vice provost and professor emeritus, in a July 31 letter indicating concern that OSU, "once the number one producer of black Ph.D.s in America, is now ranked number 31."
"I was frustrated beyond measure to see how minority students' presence has plummeted at The Ohio State University in recent years," Hale said.
Hale said he came to OSU in 1971 and designed the Graduate and Professional Schools Visitation Days Program, which invited top minority students to visit OSU. Because of his initiative, nearly $15 million in graduate fellowship awards were awarded to minority students.
"During the '70s and '80s, we became the number one producer of Ph.D.s (because of the recruitment program)," Hale said. "Even though the program continues, I was concerned we are not ranked as high."
Saturday, November 18, 2006
One more Ohio State-Michigan post
The Dayton Daily has great game coverage today, showing why it has one of the best sports pages in the country (certainly the best in Ohio). And Hal McCoy has a beautiful personal reminiscence of Bo Schembechler, showing why he is one of the best sportswriters in the country.
Once or twice a year during baseball season I send Hal an email to tell him how good his coverage of the Reds is. He always answers me, and is gracious in doing so, with a full letter, not just "thanks". His writing is terrific, and he always knows what's going on behind the scenes.
An excerpt and link below the fold. We became friends when I covered his Miami teams, and he trusted me enough to permit me quick entrance into the locker room after games, in time to hear some of his, uh, postgame talks. Bo didn't lose often, but when he did, a damsel tied to a railroad track was in less distress than his players.
One of Bo's quarterbacks, left-handed Ernie Kellerman, once told me, "Bo never gets mad if you win every game and execute every play to perfection."
After a loss, not even the sun would cross to the side of the Oxford street on which Bo walked. He and Ohio State coach Woody Hayes were so much alike they were two yolks in one egg shell.
After Schembechler left Miami for Michigan, I covered a few Bo-Woody UM-OSU encounters that were as big to both sides as today's game is to the football universe. Because I knew Bo, the paper would send me to Ann Arbor, Mich., the week of the game to cover the Michigan aspect.
During one of those weeks, when the game was in Columbus, Schembechler handed me a maize-and-blue Michigan cap and said, "If you don't wear this in the Ohio State press box, our friendship is over."
Read the whole article here.
Thursday, November 16, 2006
Why Ohio State-Michigan Matters, Even Though It Doesn't Matter
UPDATE: Schembechler dead at 77. What a sad way to go into Ohio State-Michigan weekend.
I'd like to be able to answer the question from Peace Chicken, which is, why does it matter? It being the game. Rather, The Game. The Ohio State-Michigan game.
I'm not sure I can answer that completely, but I do understand why the game is a big deal, and why people act so irrationally about it. I understand it from our side of the state line, anyway.
First some facts about what Ohio State means in Ohio.
1. In Columbus, Ohio State is the only game in town. Columbus is one of the top 20 cities in the country, but boasts no major league baseball, football, or basketball team. Now they have the expansion hockey Blue Jackets, but that's pretty recent. And sure there's the Crew, which has a following. But it's not engrained into the city culture the way Ohio State football is. It's the major leagues as far as Columbus is concerned. Furthermore, this is a football state. Spend a few autumn Friday nights here and you'll see what I mean.
And that's unique. Michigan, for example, competes not only with the Detroit area sports, but with Michigan State, with whom they share another heated rivalry. There are other states where a university is the major source of pride for the state, like Nebraska. Sure, Nebraska football is big in Nebraska. But is there a major metropolis that calls it home? Ohio State is the flagship university of the state AND the primary (only) sports in a major city. I can't think of anywhere else that that's true. Not Minnesota, not UCLA or USC, nowhere. Nowhere is there such a large market where the local college team is undeniably king, so unchallenged in its attentions.
2. Ohio State is enormous. I graduated with over 5,000 people. OSU is the largest university in the country. It always ranks in the top two or three in population, near or ahead of Texas, UCLA, and Minnesota. Currently they are number one.
3. The Ohio State tradition is an important symbol of state pride. In football, it is associated with Paul Brown and Woody Hayes, two of the greatest names in football history. It has more Heisman Trophy winners than any other university, tied with Notre Dame, and will be all alone if Smith takes the trophy this year as expected. The only two-time winner, Archie Griffin, is a Buckeye. And the Ohio State athletic tradition is not limited to football. Jesse Owens, Jack Nicklaus, Bobby Knight, John Havlicek, and Jerry Lucas were all Buckeyes. People in Ohio associate Ohio State with greatness.
4. The John Cooper years, during which Ohio State lost 10 of 13 games against Michigan, created tremendous bitterness among Ohio State fans. They are not over it, and still hunger to beat Michigan badly over and over again.
Finally, there is this simple fact: This game is for the national championship. No one else can come close to the winner of this game. The BCS championship will be a joke. This year, it really is THE game.
