Gender and the Opportunity Cost of Higher Education

    Going to school everyday was a fairly unstressful experience for me growing up. I never truly struggled in my studies, there was rarely any pressure to meet certain grades, and I always had a way to get to school. I've had it easy. The one thing always purveying my mind throughout the years was the one expectation placed on me by my parents: I was going to go to college, and that was non-negotiable. This was the attitude of the United States in the 2000's after all: educate the youth and leave no child left behind. Even when this cultural attitude to college suddenly flipped in my high school years in response to the shortage of graduates going to trade schools, the measure of success was still codified in my mind. I was going to graduate high school, go get an associate's degree to save money, then transfer and walk across the stage after getting my bachelor's degree from the University of Washington.

    About 4 years later, plans obviously changed. I still did go to community college and I did still get my associates, but my terrible memory caused me to miss out on any chance of going to UW and still graduating when I wanted to. One thing that oddly stayed the same between UGA and UW is the fact that the majority of the student populations are female. Of course when  saying "majority" in this the difference is only by 5% to 10%, but nonetheless it shows that the US has seen major changes to its student populations since the '70s when campuses were still male dominated (Wswail, 2019) with the turn occurring in the mid '80s to become majority female.

    As we toured Morocco's places of higher education and research, it was pointed out that Moroccan schools similarly maintain higher female student populations than male students. What was interesting about this is that, whereas this is just something that gets a certain group worked-up about the "underrepresentation and undervaluing" of men, the reason for these uneven demographic splits was clear: young Moroccan men have to operate under the pressure of being a very necessary source of financial support for their families and thus it would be a luxury to put off work for 3-6 years to get a degree while spending more money in the process. It was at ENA-Meknes where this perspective was shared, an institution that itself holds a skew toward female students. 

    I'm lucky enough to have been in a position where I did not need to immediately enter the workforce. My family had been putting away money for me to go to college the best they could through our financial issues and now can live comfortably while supporting a child in school. Listening to the stories of these students gave me the feeling Morocco is on the precipice of beginning a cycle much like the one the United States already finds itself in: one generation of little to no college education paying it forward to their children that will see higher education and greater opportunities than their parents did at the same age. But for now, the life of the Moroccan student remains an exclusive investment that is better suited for the female role in the country's society and culture than it is for men. 

Wswail. (2019, March 20). Higher education enrollment trends by gender, 1970 to 2025. High-Level Research Solutions for Education. https://educationalpolicy.org/hello-world/