Comments about ‘Utah women lag behind nation in higher education’

I have respect for Susan Madsen and her family, but I think she and her colleagues are barking up the wrong tree here.

"Nationwide, 57 percent of college students are women. Across Utah's public higher education system, that number is about 49 percent, according to the latest 2009 fall enrollment numbers."

So we have parity here in Utah (49% is as close as you'll ever get). Why are we worried about this?

The real study should be why only 43% of college attenders nation-wide are men.

Are men not at least as likely to need to support a family? Do men need education less than women? Where are the cries for equality?

THE REAL STUDY SHOULD BE: how and why are boys getting shortchanged in our "post-modern" educational system, to the point where they can't/won't go on to succeed in college.

Just wanted to say I agree with Joe Moe. Seederberg is Anti-Mormon and is wasting our tax dollars on this type of a study.

You can thank our former RHINO governor Huntsman for appointing guys like Seederburg who come from outside the local culture and get their kicks off of stiring up the pot with usleless studies such os this. Give it a few more years and women will be in the majority in Utah also.

Like Joe Moe said the REAL story here is why men are failing to go to college.

I worked with and around Bill Sederburg for 5 years while he was at UVSC/UVU...never once heard him say anything remotely Anit-Mormon...on the contrary, he would more often than not bend over backwards to appease the local religious majority. Blanket mistrust of "outsiders" just makes Utah seem backwards and ignorant.

As someone who works in higher education I always want more information about the student population I serve. It isn't just about the women who aren't going to school...a study like this will help shed some light on the issues that women deal with while attending. As a man I could benefit from some more perspective, and Susan Madsen is a respected scholar.

There might be a few more woman here in Utah. More so than the national average that are interested in starting a family instead of a education at this point in their life.. I am not concerned at all..

It's all about choices and priorities people place on their lives. We ask people to put more efforts in to families and caring for them then turn around and tell them that is the wrong thing to do, that a so called degree is more important.

Not even the student with the most degrees coming out of Utah schools are really getting an education. This is very evident in many of the so called professional careers that have shocked me with the amount of knowledge they don't have. Even basic skills elude them, like being able to read, write, and do simple math.

How they get these degrees and diplomas is a real mystery, it must have something to do with getting tax money by the numbers from Utah tax payers. The more students enrolled, whether they get educated or not, means more tax dollars for the school.

Higher education is overwhelmed with students that don't belong there because they are incapable of learning and applying what higher eduction can offer. At one time you had to qualify to get in to college and a degree had meaning, now all it takes is education welfare.

The modern university has morphed into vocational training, much of which can be accomplished more efficiently online. I believe it was Peter Drucker who said that a college education was a 4 year postponement of entry into the real world.

We all know that women are supposed to be raising the kids and not out in the workforce. There place is in the home as home makers and mothers. That is why many women delay getting a degree and often don't bother to once they start a family. They are too busy getting married as soon as they are out of High school and can find a man to take care of them. Then within a year they are pregnant.

Women don't seem to want much more than to be pregnant and married. Why would they need to go to college unless they can't find a man? Let's be honest. If they still encouraged them to marry at sixteen, we'd be having a high drop out rate in High School.

If we want to improve numbers, women need to be taught young to put off marriage until they are at least twenty. They also need to be taught about birth control and family planning. Without those three things, women will continue to be second class citizens.

Its blah blah blah. Always the same platitudes from the lefties. Joe Moe is absolutely right. Your attitude makes his point. If it's not about promoting only the politically correct gender, you have no interest.

Let's face it women in Utah are expected to work and put their partner through school and by then a family is on the way and her job is in the home. Don't want to educated women as its a threat to the man and family

Right now many underemployed and even unemployed men are going back to school to help them get a good paying job. This really ups the men's count.

According to Joe Moe (first post), Utah is closer to parity than the nation.

I have read in other articles that more Utah's attend university than the nation as a whole.

So Utah is actually better off no matter how one looks at it. This article had to spin hard to make it appear differently.

Why is only university considered here? What about post secondary education of all types? Is trade school not valuable?

University education is a big plus, I have a 4 year degree myself in electrical engineering, (yes I am male).

However the world needs people with a wide variety of skills. Plumbers, electricitians, mechanics etc are also needed in our society.

Lets not just focus on university education. People shouldn't feel pressured to attend any particular type of institution. The education one chooses does and should depend on ones interests.

We live in a culture that values women as wives and mothers ideally more than workers, so there is not the push for a degree for them to the same extent as there would be if they were to be expected to provide for their families. I have daughters who I will support in college, but I definitely encourage marriage and family over career, so I will not mind at all if they don't finish and I make no apologies for that.
This doesn't need to waste money for a study for.

"... seeing divorce rates rise just as highly as in other states, which leaves more uneducated single moms."

I graduated from college - twice. Even so, I don't consider those without a college degree to be "uneducated."

Please be careful with your word choice.

"Susan Madsen, a Utah Valley University business professor, has launched a yearlong study to determine why women in the Beehive State seem less interested in higher education than their national peers."

Note to Prof. Madsen: When you live in a state dominated by one religion, and when leaders from said religion tell their women that the highest and most noble role of women is to stay home and sqeeze out babies, then you have to ask yourself: "Why go to school." Undoubtedly, I'm going to get a number of responses on this thread quoting from church leaders telling LDS women to get an education. But when you look at the culture from which these women emerge it is starkly anti-education: stay home, raise kids, and only get an education if it's convenient. That's the message LDS leaders send, and that's why we have a great imbalance between men and women in Utah universities.

This study sounds like a waste of time. Sederburg already stated he believes the female student population might suffer "because of a local cultural factor of women tending to marry and start families at younger ages in Utah, contributing to fewer female students in colleges and universities," and those of us who grew up in this area know the cultural/social pressure of avoiding "old maid-ism" by getting married as soon as we are able to after high school. BYU won't release their numbers because they probably have an embarrassingly high rate of women drop out to get married after their freshman year. The "joke" that women attend BYU to find a husband is based on fact.

For me and many of my friends, we were more interested in starting a family than higher education. (I do have my BS) In a culture where family comes first, is it really all that surprising?
I agree with Joe, why are there fewer men getting higher degrees?

Joe Moe, you are right. a costly study searching to find answers to questions that are not the right questions is a waste of money, time, effort

it's interesting another UVU person benefits from USHE. Since Sederburg was appointed, he has hired someone from UVU to look at the CEU/USU possible merger and now he commissions a study to a business professor at UVU. Why a business professor? I'm sure she is a talented professor at a teaching university, but why not commission this to a research professor in an education department who actually does research on-going? Did he bid out this study to Utah and Utah State where they are conducting research?

I also think many are correct that we are close to the national average. The bigger question in Utah is with how many women obtain their degree/s and then choose to stay home. This is where we distance ourselves from the national average.

Another idea would be of the women who have degree/s, how many become involved in volunteer efforts or with their child's schools? For example, a someone with an accounting degree could help with the PTA finances, etc. This would be an interesting study.

Many people commenting on this post seem to think that marriage and families should come before education. This is fine, until your daughters are widowed or divorced, leaving them to be the primary financial provider of the family. And let's not forget that there are many men out there who are just plain lazy and can't/won't hold down a job - again leaving the woman as the primary financial provider. Why would you want to short change your daughters? The risk of these things happening is not small, especially divorce. I am LDS and strongly believe that all women should be educated or develop a skill to the point that they would be perfectly able to support themselves or their family should anything happen. Women should also be financially savvy. There is no excuse in this modern day for women to have no understanding of how to manage household finances.