Questões de Inglês do ENEM

Considere o cartum a seguir para responder à questão.

(https://www.gocomics.com/nickanderson/2019/01/11 - Acessado em: 10/03/2019.

De acordo com o cartum, Trump

T E X T

Men Fall Behind in College Enrollment.

Women Still Play Catch-Up at Work.

    The coronavirus upended the lives of millions of college students. The Wall Street Journal reported this week that men have been hit particularly hard — accounting for roughly three-fourths of pandemic-driven dropouts — and depicted an accelerating crisis in male enrollment.

     A closer look at historical trends and the labor market reveals a more complex picture, one in which women keep playing catch-up in an economy structured to favor men.

    In many ways, the college gender imbalance is not new. Women have outnumbered men on campus since the late 1970s. The ratio of female to male undergraduates increased much more from 1970 to 1980 than from 1980 to the present. And the numbers haven’t changed much in recent decades. In 1992, 55 percent of college students were women. By 2019, the number had nudged up to 57.4 percent.

    While the shift in the college gender ratio is often characterized as men “falling behind,” men are actually more likely to go to college today than they were when they were the majority, many decades ago. In 1970, 32 percent of men 18 to 24 were enrolled in college, a level that was most likely inflated by the opportunity to avoid being drafted into the Vietnam War. That percentage dropped to 24 percent in 1978 and then steadily grew to a stable 37 percent to 39 percent over the last decade.

    The gender ratio mostly changed because female enrollment increased even faster, more than doubling over the last half-century.

    Because of the change in ratio, some selective colleges discriminate against women in admissions to maintain a gender balance, as The Journal reported. Generally, admissions officials prefer to limit the disparity to 55 percent female and 45 percent male. Their reason not to let the gender ratio drift further toward 2 to 1 is straightforward: Such a ratio would most likely cause a decrease in applications.

    In a New York Times essay in 2006 titled “To All the Girls I’ve Rejected,” the dean of admissions at Kenyon College at the time explained: “Beyond the availability of dance partners for the winter formal, gender balance matters in ways both large and small on a residential college campus. Once you become decidedly female in enrollment, fewer males and, as it turns out, fewer females find your campus attractive.”

    The raw numbers don’t take into account the varying value of college degrees. Men still dominate in fields like technology and engineering, which offer some of the highest salaries for recent graduates. Perhaps not coincidentally, the professors in those fields remain overwhelmingly male.

    Women surged into college because they were able to, but also because many had to. There are still some good-paying jobs available to men without college credentials. There are relatively few for such women. And despite the considerable cost in time and money of earning a degree, many female-dominated jobs don’t pay well.

    The fact that the male-female wage gap remains large after more than four decades in which women outnumbered men in college strongly suggests that college alone offers a narrow view of opportunity. Women often seem stuck in place: As they overcome obstacles and use their degrees to move into male-dominated fields, the fields offer less pay in return.

    None of this diminishes the significance of the male decrease in college enrollment and graduation. Educators view the male-driven dive in community college enrollment over the last 18 months as a calamity. The pandemic confirmed what was already known. Higher socioeconomic classes are deeply embedded in college and will bear considerable cost and inconvenience to stay there, even if it means watching lectures on a laptop in the room above your parent’s garage and missing a season of parties and football games.

    For other people, college attendance is far more fragile. It does not define their identities and is not as important as earning a steady paycheck or starting and nurturing a family. In a time of crisis, it can be delayed — but the reality is that people who drop out of college are statistically unlikely to complete a degree.

    Last year, women were less likely than men to leave community college, despite their disproportionate responsibility for caregiving and domestic work, because they no doubt understood the bleak long-term job prospects for women without a credential. 

www.nytimes.com/Sept.9,2021

T E X T

Men Fall Behind in College Enrollment.

Women Still Play Catch-Up at Work.

    The coronavirus upended the lives of millions of college students. The Wall Street Journal reported this week that men have been hit particularly hard — accounting for roughly three-fourths of pandemic-driven dropouts — and depicted an accelerating crisis in male enrollment.

     A closer look at historical trends and the labor market reveals a more complex picture, one in which women keep playing catch-up in an economy structured to favor men.

    In many ways, the college gender imbalance is not new. Women have outnumbered men on campus since the late 1970s. The ratio of female to male undergraduates increased much more from 1970 to 1980 than from 1980 to the present. And the numbers haven’t changed much in recent decades. In 1992, 55 percent of college students were women. By 2019, the number had nudged up to 57.4 percent.

    While the shift in the college gender ratio is often characterized as men “falling behind,” men are actually more likely to go to college today than they were when they were the majority, many decades ago. In 1970, 32 percent of men 18 to 24 were enrolled in college, a level that was most likely inflated by the opportunity to avoid being drafted into the Vietnam War. That percentage dropped to 24 percent in 1978 and then steadily grew to a stable 37 percent to 39 percent over the last decade.

    The gender ratio mostly changed because female enrollment increased even faster, more than doubling over the last half-century.

    Because of the change in ratio, some selective colleges discriminate against women in admissions to maintain a gender balance, as The Journal reported. Generally, admissions officials prefer to limit the disparity to 55 percent female and 45 percent male. Their reason not to let the gender ratio drift further toward 2 to 1 is straightforward: Such a ratio would most likely cause a decrease in applications.

    In a New York Times essay in 2006 titled “To All the Girls I’ve Rejected,” the dean of admissions at Kenyon College at the time explained: “Beyond the availability of dance partners for the winter formal, gender balance matters in ways both large and small on a residential college campus. Once you become decidedly female in enrollment, fewer males and, as it turns out, fewer females find your campus attractive.”

    The raw numbers don’t take into account the varying value of college degrees. Men still dominate in fields like technology and engineering, which offer some of the highest salaries for recent graduates. Perhaps not coincidentally, the professors in those fields remain overwhelmingly male.

    Women surged into college because they were able to, but also because many had to. There are still some good-paying jobs available to men without college credentials. There are relatively few for such women. And despite the considerable cost in time and money of earning a degree, many female-dominated jobs don’t pay well.

    The fact that the male-female wage gap remains large after more than four decades in which women outnumbered men in college strongly suggests that college alone offers a narrow view of opportunity. Women often seem stuck in place: As they overcome obstacles and use their degrees to move into male-dominated fields, the fields offer less pay in return.

    None of this diminishes the significance of the male decrease in college enrollment and graduation. Educators view the male-driven dive in community college enrollment over the last 18 months as a calamity. The pandemic confirmed what was already known. Higher socioeconomic classes are deeply embedded in college and will bear considerable cost and inconvenience to stay there, even if it means watching lectures on a laptop in the room above your parent’s garage and missing a season of parties and football games.

    For other people, college attendance is far more fragile. It does not define their identities and is not as important as earning a steady paycheck or starting and nurturing a family. In a time of crisis, it can be delayed — but the reality is that people who drop out of college are statistically unlikely to complete a degree.

    Last year, women were less likely than men to leave community college, despite their disproportionate responsibility for caregiving and domestic work, because they no doubt understood the bleak long-term job prospects for women without a credential. 

www.nytimes.com/Sept.9,2021

T E X T

Men Fall Behind in College Enrollment.

Women Still Play Catch-Up at Work.

    The coronavirus upended the lives of millions of college students. The Wall Street Journal reported this week that men have been hit particularly hard — accounting for roughly three-fourths of pandemic-driven dropouts — and depicted an accelerating crisis in male enrollment.

     A closer look at historical trends and the labor market reveals a more complex picture, one in which women keep playing catch-up in an economy structured to favor men.

    In many ways, the college gender imbalance is not new. Women have outnumbered men on campus since the late 1970s. The ratio of female to male undergraduates increased much more from 1970 to 1980 than from 1980 to the present. And the numbers haven’t changed much in recent decades. In 1992, 55 percent of college students were women. By 2019, the number had nudged up to 57.4 percent.

    While the shift in the college gender ratio is often characterized as men “falling behind,” men are actually more likely to go to college today than they were when they were the majority, many decades ago. In 1970, 32 percent of men 18 to 24 were enrolled in college, a level that was most likely inflated by the opportunity to avoid being drafted into the Vietnam War. That percentage dropped to 24 percent in 1978 and then steadily grew to a stable 37 percent to 39 percent over the last decade.

    The gender ratio mostly changed because female enrollment increased even faster, more than doubling over the last half-century.

    Because of the change in ratio, some selective colleges discriminate against women in admissions to maintain a gender balance, as The Journal reported. Generally, admissions officials prefer to limit the disparity to 55 percent female and 45 percent male. Their reason not to let the gender ratio drift further toward 2 to 1 is straightforward: Such a ratio would most likely cause a decrease in applications.

    In a New York Times essay in 2006 titled “To All the Girls I’ve Rejected,” the dean of admissions at Kenyon College at the time explained: “Beyond the availability of dance partners for the winter formal, gender balance matters in ways both large and small on a residential college campus. Once you become decidedly female in enrollment, fewer males and, as it turns out, fewer females find your campus attractive.”

    The raw numbers don’t take into account the varying value of college degrees. Men still dominate in fields like technology and engineering, which offer some of the highest salaries for recent graduates. Perhaps not coincidentally, the professors in those fields remain overwhelmingly male.

    Women surged into college because they were able to, but also because many had to. There are still some good-paying jobs available to men without college credentials. There are relatively few for such women. And despite the considerable cost in time and money of earning a degree, many female-dominated jobs don’t pay well.

    The fact that the male-female wage gap remains large after more than four decades in which women outnumbered men in college strongly suggests that college alone offers a narrow view of opportunity. Women often seem stuck in place: As they overcome obstacles and use their degrees to move into male-dominated fields, the fields offer less pay in return.

    None of this diminishes the significance of the male decrease in college enrollment and graduation. Educators view the male-driven dive in community college enrollment over the last 18 months as a calamity. The pandemic confirmed what was already known. Higher socioeconomic classes are deeply embedded in college and will bear considerable cost and inconvenience to stay there, even if it means watching lectures on a laptop in the room above your parent’s garage and missing a season of parties and football games.

    For other people, college attendance is far more fragile. It does not define their identities and is not as important as earning a steady paycheck or starting and nurturing a family. In a time of crisis, it can be delayed — but the reality is that people who drop out of college are statistically unlikely to complete a degree.

    Last year, women were less likely than men to leave community college, despite their disproportionate responsibility for caregiving and domestic work, because they no doubt understood the bleak long-term job prospects for women without a credential. 

www.nytimes.com/Sept.9,2021

The text mentions a strategy of discrimination in some colleges in the process of admitting women in order to

T E X T

Men Fall Behind in College Enrollment.

Women Still Play Catch-Up at Work.

    The coronavirus upended the lives of millions of college students. The Wall Street Journal reported this week that men have been hit particularly hard — accounting for roughly three-fourths of pandemic-driven dropouts — and depicted an accelerating crisis in male enrollment.

     A closer look at historical trends and the labor market reveals a more complex picture, one in which women keep playing catch-up in an economy structured to favor men.

    In many ways, the college gender imbalance is not new. Women have outnumbered men on campus since the late 1970s. The ratio of female to male undergraduates increased much more from 1970 to 1980 than from 1980 to the present. And the numbers haven’t changed much in recent decades. In 1992, 55 percent of college students were women. By 2019, the number had nudged up to 57.4 percent.

    While the shift in the college gender ratio is often characterized as men “falling behind,” men are actually more likely to go to college today than they were when they were the majority, many decades ago. In 1970, 32 percent of men 18 to 24 were enrolled in college, a level that was most likely inflated by the opportunity to avoid being drafted into the Vietnam War. That percentage dropped to 24 percent in 1978 and then steadily grew to a stable 37 percent to 39 percent over the last decade.

    The gender ratio mostly changed because female enrollment increased even faster, more than doubling over the last half-century.

    Because of the change in ratio, some selective colleges discriminate against women in admissions to maintain a gender balance, as The Journal reported. Generally, admissions officials prefer to limit the disparity to 55 percent female and 45 percent male. Their reason not to let the gender ratio drift further toward 2 to 1 is straightforward: Such a ratio would most likely cause a decrease in applications.

    In a New York Times essay in 2006 titled “To All the Girls I’ve Rejected,” the dean of admissions at Kenyon College at the time explained: “Beyond the availability of dance partners for the winter formal, gender balance matters in ways both large and small on a residential college campus. Once you become decidedly female in enrollment, fewer males and, as it turns out, fewer females find your campus attractive.”

    The raw numbers don’t take into account the varying value of college degrees. Men still dominate in fields like technology and engineering, which offer some of the highest salaries for recent graduates. Perhaps not coincidentally, the professors in those fields remain overwhelmingly male.

    Women surged into college because they were able to, but also because many had to. There are still some good-paying jobs available to men without college credentials. There are relatively few for such women. And despite the considerable cost in time and money of earning a degree, many female-dominated jobs don’t pay well.

    The fact that the male-female wage gap remains large after more than four decades in which women outnumbered men in college strongly suggests that college alone offers a narrow view of opportunity. Women often seem stuck in place: As they overcome obstacles and use their degrees to move into male-dominated fields, the fields offer less pay in return.

    None of this diminishes the significance of the male decrease in college enrollment and graduation. Educators view the male-driven dive in community college enrollment over the last 18 months as a calamity. The pandemic confirmed what was already known. Higher socioeconomic classes are deeply embedded in college and will bear considerable cost and inconvenience to stay there, even if it means watching lectures on a laptop in the room above your parent’s garage and missing a season of parties and football games.

    For other people, college attendance is far more fragile. It does not define their identities and is not as important as earning a steady paycheck or starting and nurturing a family. In a time of crisis, it can be delayed — but the reality is that people who drop out of college are statistically unlikely to complete a degree.

    Last year, women were less likely than men to leave community college, despite their disproportionate responsibility for caregiving and domestic work, because they no doubt understood the bleak long-term job prospects for women without a credential. 

www.nytimes.com/Sept.9,2021

T E X T

Men Fall Behind in College Enrollment.

Women Still Play Catch-Up at Work.

    The coronavirus upended the lives of millions of college students. The Wall Street Journal reported this week that men have been hit particularly hard — accounting for roughly three-fourths of pandemic-driven dropouts — and depicted an accelerating crisis in male enrollment.

     A closer look at historical trends and the labor market reveals a more complex picture, one in which women keep playing catch-up in an economy structured to favor men.

    In many ways, the college gender imbalance is not new. Women have outnumbered men on campus since the late 1970s. The ratio of female to male undergraduates increased much more from 1970 to 1980 than from 1980 to the present. And the numbers haven’t changed much in recent decades. In 1992, 55 percent of college students were women. By 2019, the number had nudged up to 57.4 percent.

    While the shift in the college gender ratio is often characterized as men “falling behind,” men are actually more likely to go to college today than they were when they were the majority, many decades ago. In 1970, 32 percent of men 18 to 24 were enrolled in college, a level that was most likely inflated by the opportunity to avoid being drafted into the Vietnam War. That percentage dropped to 24 percent in 1978 and then steadily grew to a stable 37 percent to 39 percent over the last decade.

    The gender ratio mostly changed because female enrollment increased even faster, more than doubling over the last half-century.

    Because of the change in ratio, some selective colleges discriminate against women in admissions to maintain a gender balance, as The Journal reported. Generally, admissions officials prefer to limit the disparity to 55 percent female and 45 percent male. Their reason not to let the gender ratio drift further toward 2 to 1 is straightforward: Such a ratio would most likely cause a decrease in applications.

    In a New York Times essay in 2006 titled “To All the Girls I’ve Rejected,” the dean of admissions at Kenyon College at the time explained: “Beyond the availability of dance partners for the winter formal, gender balance matters in ways both large and small on a residential college campus. Once you become decidedly female in enrollment, fewer males and, as it turns out, fewer females find your campus attractive.”

    The raw numbers don’t take into account the varying value of college degrees. Men still dominate in fields like technology and engineering, which offer some of the highest salaries for recent graduates. Perhaps not coincidentally, the professors in those fields remain overwhelmingly male.

    Women surged into college because they were able to, but also because many had to. There are still some good-paying jobs available to men without college credentials. There are relatively few for such women. And despite the considerable cost in time and money of earning a degree, many female-dominated jobs don’t pay well.

    The fact that the male-female wage gap remains large after more than four decades in which women outnumbered men in college strongly suggests that college alone offers a narrow view of opportunity. Women often seem stuck in place: As they overcome obstacles and use their degrees to move into male-dominated fields, the fields offer less pay in return.

    None of this diminishes the significance of the male decrease in college enrollment and graduation. Educators view the male-driven dive in community college enrollment over the last 18 months as a calamity. The pandemic confirmed what was already known. Higher socioeconomic classes are deeply embedded in college and will bear considerable cost and inconvenience to stay there, even if it means watching lectures on a laptop in the room above your parent’s garage and missing a season of parties and football games.

    For other people, college attendance is far more fragile. It does not define their identities and is not as important as earning a steady paycheck or starting and nurturing a family. In a time of crisis, it can be delayed — but the reality is that people who drop out of college are statistically unlikely to complete a degree.

    Last year, women were less likely than men to leave community college, despite their disproportionate responsibility for caregiving and domestic work, because they no doubt understood the bleak long-term job prospects for women without a credential. 

www.nytimes.com/Sept.9,2021

T E X T

Men Fall Behind in College Enrollment.

Women Still Play Catch-Up at Work.

    The coronavirus upended the lives of millions of college students. The Wall Street Journal reported this week that men have been hit particularly hard — accounting for roughly three-fourths of pandemic-driven dropouts — and depicted an accelerating crisis in male enrollment.

     A closer look at historical trends and the labor market reveals a more complex picture, one in which women keep playing catch-up in an economy structured to favor men.

    In many ways, the college gender imbalance is not new. Women have outnumbered men on campus since the late 1970s. The ratio of female to male undergraduates increased much more from 1970 to 1980 than from 1980 to the present. And the numbers haven’t changed much in recent decades. In 1992, 55 percent of college students were women. By 2019, the number had nudged up to 57.4 percent.

    While the shift in the college gender ratio is often characterized as men “falling behind,” men are actually more likely to go to college today than they were when they were the majority, many decades ago. In 1970, 32 percent of men 18 to 24 were enrolled in college, a level that was most likely inflated by the opportunity to avoid being drafted into the Vietnam War. That percentage dropped to 24 percent in 1978 and then steadily grew to a stable 37 percent to 39 percent over the last decade.

    The gender ratio mostly changed because female enrollment increased even faster, more than doubling over the last half-century.

    Because of the change in ratio, some selective colleges discriminate against women in admissions to maintain a gender balance, as The Journal reported. Generally, admissions officials prefer to limit the disparity to 55 percent female and 45 percent male. Their reason not to let the gender ratio drift further toward 2 to 1 is straightforward: Such a ratio would most likely cause a decrease in applications.

    In a New York Times essay in 2006 titled “To All the Girls I’ve Rejected,” the dean of admissions at Kenyon College at the time explained: “Beyond the availability of dance partners for the winter formal, gender balance matters in ways both large and small on a residential college campus. Once you become decidedly female in enrollment, fewer males and, as it turns out, fewer females find your campus attractive.”

    The raw numbers don’t take into account the varying value of college degrees. Men still dominate in fields like technology and engineering, which offer some of the highest salaries for recent graduates. Perhaps not coincidentally, the professors in those fields remain overwhelmingly male.

    Women surged into college because they were able to, but also because many had to. There are still some good-paying jobs available to men without college credentials. There are relatively few for such women. And despite the considerable cost in time and money of earning a degree, many female-dominated jobs don’t pay well.

    The fact that the male-female wage gap remains large after more than four decades in which women outnumbered men in college strongly suggests that college alone offers a narrow view of opportunity. Women often seem stuck in place: As they overcome obstacles and use their degrees to move into male-dominated fields, the fields offer less pay in return.

    None of this diminishes the significance of the male decrease in college enrollment and graduation. Educators view the male-driven dive in community college enrollment over the last 18 months as a calamity. The pandemic confirmed what was already known. Higher socioeconomic classes are deeply embedded in college and will bear considerable cost and inconvenience to stay there, even if it means watching lectures on a laptop in the room above your parent’s garage and missing a season of parties and football games.

    For other people, college attendance is far more fragile. It does not define their identities and is not as important as earning a steady paycheck or starting and nurturing a family. In a time of crisis, it can be delayed — but the reality is that people who drop out of college are statistically unlikely to complete a degree.

    Last year, women were less likely than men to leave community college, despite their disproportionate responsibility for caregiving and domestic work, because they no doubt understood the bleak long-term job prospects for women without a credential. 

www.nytimes.com/Sept.9,2021

T E X T

Men Fall Behind in College Enrollment.

Women Still Play Catch-Up at Work.

    The coronavirus upended the lives of millions of college students. The Wall Street Journal reported this week that men have been hit particularly hard — accounting for roughly three-fourths of pandemic-driven dropouts — and depicted an accelerating crisis in male enrollment.

     A closer look at historical trends and the labor market reveals a more complex picture, one in which women keep playing catch-up in an economy structured to favor men.

    In many ways, the college gender imbalance is not new. Women have outnumbered men on campus since the late 1970s. The ratio of female to male undergraduates increased much more from 1970 to 1980 than from 1980 to the present. And the numbers haven’t changed much in recent decades. In 1992, 55 percent of college students were women. By 2019, the number had nudged up to 57.4 percent.

    While the shift in the college gender ratio is often characterized as men “falling behind,” men are actually more likely to go to college today than they were when they were the majority, many decades ago. In 1970, 32 percent of men 18 to 24 were enrolled in college, a level that was most likely inflated by the opportunity to avoid being drafted into the Vietnam War. That percentage dropped to 24 percent in 1978 and then steadily grew to a stable 37 percent to 39 percent over the last decade.

    The gender ratio mostly changed because female enrollment increased even faster, more than doubling over the last half-century.

    Because of the change in ratio, some selective colleges discriminate against women in admissions to maintain a gender balance, as The Journal reported. Generally, admissions officials prefer to limit the disparity to 55 percent female and 45 percent male. Their reason not to let the gender ratio drift further toward 2 to 1 is straightforward: Such a ratio would most likely cause a decrease in applications.

    In a New York Times essay in 2006 titled “To All the Girls I’ve Rejected,” the dean of admissions at Kenyon College at the time explained: “Beyond the availability of dance partners for the winter formal, gender balance matters in ways both large and small on a residential college campus. Once you become decidedly female in enrollment, fewer males and, as it turns out, fewer females find your campus attractive.”

    The raw numbers don’t take into account the varying value of college degrees. Men still dominate in fields like technology and engineering, which offer some of the highest salaries for recent graduates. Perhaps not coincidentally, the professors in those fields remain overwhelmingly male.

    Women surged into college because they were able to, but also because many had to. There are still some good-paying jobs available to men without college credentials. There are relatively few for such women. And despite the considerable cost in time and money of earning a degree, many female-dominated jobs don’t pay well.

    The fact that the male-female wage gap remains large after more than four decades in which women outnumbered men in college strongly suggests that college alone offers a narrow view of opportunity. Women often seem stuck in place: As they overcome obstacles and use their degrees to move into male-dominated fields, the fields offer less pay in return.

    None of this diminishes the significance of the male decrease in college enrollment and graduation. Educators view the male-driven dive in community college enrollment over the last 18 months as a calamity. The pandemic confirmed what was already known. Higher socioeconomic classes are deeply embedded in college and will bear considerable cost and inconvenience to stay there, even if it means watching lectures on a laptop in the room above your parent’s garage and missing a season of parties and football games.

    For other people, college attendance is far more fragile. It does not define their identities and is not as important as earning a steady paycheck or starting and nurturing a family. In a time of crisis, it can be delayed — but the reality is that people who drop out of college are statistically unlikely to complete a degree.

    Last year, women were less likely than men to leave community college, despite their disproportionate responsibility for caregiving and domestic work, because they no doubt understood the bleak long-term job prospects for women without a credential. 

www.nytimes.com/Sept.9,2021

T E X T

Men Fall Behind in College Enrollment.

Women Still Play Catch-Up at Work.

    The coronavirus upended the lives of millions of college students. The Wall Street Journal reported this week that men have been hit particularly hard — accounting for roughly three-fourths of pandemic-driven dropouts — and depicted an accelerating crisis in male enrollment.

     A closer look at historical trends and the labor market reveals a more complex picture, one in which women keep playing catch-up in an economy structured to favor men.

    In many ways, the college gender imbalance is not new. Women have outnumbered men on campus since the late 1970s. The ratio of female to male undergraduates increased much more from 1970 to 1980 than from 1980 to the present. And the numbers haven’t changed much in recent decades. In 1992, 55 percent of college students were women. By 2019, the number had nudged up to 57.4 percent.

    While the shift in the college gender ratio is often characterized as men “falling behind,” men are actually more likely to go to college today than they were when they were the majority, many decades ago. In 1970, 32 percent of men 18 to 24 were enrolled in college, a level that was most likely inflated by the opportunity to avoid being drafted into the Vietnam War. That percentage dropped to 24 percent in 1978 and then steadily grew to a stable 37 percent to 39 percent over the last decade.

    The gender ratio mostly changed because female enrollment increased even faster, more than doubling over the last half-century.

    Because of the change in ratio, some selective colleges discriminate against women in admissions to maintain a gender balance, as The Journal reported. Generally, admissions officials prefer to limit the disparity to 55 percent female and 45 percent male. Their reason not to let the gender ratio drift further toward 2 to 1 is straightforward: Such a ratio would most likely cause a decrease in applications.

    In a New York Times essay in 2006 titled “To All the Girls I’ve Rejected,” the dean of admissions at Kenyon College at the time explained: “Beyond the availability of dance partners for the winter formal, gender balance matters in ways both large and small on a residential college campus. Once you become decidedly female in enrollment, fewer males and, as it turns out, fewer females find your campus attractive.”

    The raw numbers don’t take into account the varying value of college degrees. Men still dominate in fields like technology and engineering, which offer some of the highest salaries for recent graduates. Perhaps not coincidentally, the professors in those fields remain overwhelmingly male.

    Women surged into college because they were able to, but also because many had to. There are still some good-paying jobs available to men without college credentials. There are relatively few for such women. And despite the considerable cost in time and money of earning a degree, many female-dominated jobs don’t pay well.

    The fact that the male-female wage gap remains large after more than four decades in which women outnumbered men in college strongly suggests that college alone offers a narrow view of opportunity. Women often seem stuck in place: As they overcome obstacles and use their degrees to move into male-dominated fields, the fields offer less pay in return.

    None of this diminishes the significance of the male decrease in college enrollment and graduation. Educators view the male-driven dive in community college enrollment over the last 18 months as a calamity. The pandemic confirmed what was already known. Higher socioeconomic classes are deeply embedded in college and will bear considerable cost and inconvenience to stay there, even if it means watching lectures on a laptop in the room above your parent’s garage and missing a season of parties and football games.

    For other people, college attendance is far more fragile. It does not define their identities and is not as important as earning a steady paycheck or starting and nurturing a family. In a time of crisis, it can be delayed — but the reality is that people who drop out of college are statistically unlikely to complete a degree.

    Last year, women were less likely than men to leave community college, despite their disproportionate responsibility for caregiving and domestic work, because they no doubt understood the bleak long-term job prospects for women without a credential. 

www.nytimes.com/Sept.9,2021

Mozambique Cyclone: “Almost everything is destroyed.”

People carry their personal effects through a flooded section of Praia Nova in Beira after the cyclone. Tropical Cyclone Idai destroyed and damaged homes and knocked out electricity and communications.

Cyclone Idai hit the city of Beira hard and the scale of damage is massive, say Red Cross and Red Crescent aid workers who reached the Mozambican city a few days ago. The scale of devastation is enormous. It seems that 90 per cent of the area is completely destroyed.”

The Red Cross and Red Crescent team was among the first to arrive in Beira since Cyclone Idai made landfall March 14-15. With Beira’s airport closed and roads cut off due to flooding, the team drove from Maputo, the capital city, before taking a helicopter for the last leg of the journey. “Almost everything is destroyed. Communication lines have been completely cut and roads have

been destroyed. Some affected communities are not accessible,” said LeSueur. “Beira has been severely battered. But we are also hearing that the situation outside the city could be even worse. Yesterday, a large dam burst and cut off the last road to the city.”

While the physical impact of Idai is beginning to emerge, the human impact is still unclear. Authorities in the country are warning that the death toll may climb beyond 1,000 people.

Heavy rain will continue in the coming days which may only exacerbate the dire situation and cause already saturated rivers to overflow.

Following its landfall in Mozambique, the cyclone continued west to Zimbabwe as a tropical storm, wreaking havoc in the eastern part of the country, with Manicaland Province being the hardest-hit. At least 31 deaths have been reported and over 100 people are missing in Zimbabwe.

Source: www.redcross.org/about-us/news-and -events/news/2019/mozambique-cyclone.html 

Mozambique Cyclone: “Almost everything is destroyed.”

People carry their personal effects through a flooded section of Praia Nova in Beira after the cyclone. Tropical Cyclone Idai destroyed and damaged homes and knocked out electricity and communications.

Cyclone Idai hit the city of Beira hard and the scale of damage is massive, say Red Cross and Red Crescent aid workers who reached the Mozambican city a few days ago. The scale of devastation is enormous. It seems that 90 per cent of the area is completely destroyed.”

The Red Cross and Red Crescent team was among the first to arrive in Beira since Cyclone Idai made landfall March 14-15. With Beira’s airport closed and roads cut off due to flooding, the team drove from Maputo, the capital city, before taking a helicopter for the last leg of the journey. “Almost everything is destroyed. Communication lines have been completely cut and roads have

been destroyed. Some affected communities are not accessible,” said LeSueur. “Beira has been severely battered. But we are also hearing that the situation outside the city could be even worse. Yesterday, a large dam burst and cut off the last road to the city.”

While the physical impact of Idai is beginning to emerge, the human impact is still unclear. Authorities in the country are warning that the death toll may climb beyond 1,000 people.

Heavy rain will continue in the coming days which may only exacerbate the dire situation and cause already saturated rivers to overflow.

Following its landfall in Mozambique, the cyclone continued west to Zimbabwe as a tropical storm, wreaking havoc in the eastern part of the country, with Manicaland Province being the hardest-hit. At least 31 deaths have been reported and over 100 people are missing in Zimbabwe.

Source: www.redcross.org/about-us/news-and -events/news/2019/mozambique-cyclone.html