In the present state, the United States ranks 14th in the world in the percentage of young adults receiving a college degree. Economists claim that attainment of a college education is reflective of economic growth; thus, they say America needs to graduate higher numbers of college students, fast. Although education does allow a mind to attain virtue, not all college education is the same. Women still lack the ability to achieve their full potential through college education, making their virtue a more pressing matter than simply graduating more students.
Education is the first step towards rendering the heart independent, and earning a college degree has proven to be a stepping stone out of poverty and into liberty. In the matter of having the opportunity to receive a college education, women have no complaints. In fact, 34% of young women are likely to receive a bachelor’s degree before the age of 29, while only 26% of young men can hope of the same. Thus in the United States the opportunity for a college education does exist, and even more women take advantage of it than men.
However, in college the problem of unequal studies begins to show. The extreme disparities in gender, which exist in certain majors, show the type of education men and women are pressured to receive. The majors in which women are more than 90% dominant include: early childhood education, school student counseling, nursing, and elementary education. These focus on child development, attaching women to their motherly nature. The majors in which men are more than 90% dominant include nuclear engineering, mechanical engineering, naval architecture, and industrial production technologies. Compared to women, men receive education which focuses more on attainment of mathematics and natural sciences.
While no wrongs can be directly exposed from inclinations toward studies based on gender, it can be shown that society does not weight the two educations the same—despite the utmost importance of both. This conclusion can be drawn by comparing the average earnings of post-graduates in fields relative to female-dominated majors versus male-dominated majors. Social workers (82% female) on average earn $43,619, compared to civil engineers (89% male) at $63,457. Elementary education workers (91% female) earn $40,000, but construction services workers (92% male) earn $70,000. The major which earns women the most money out of college is nursing (92% female), which on average pays $60,000; however, it still falls far short of nuclear engineering (91% male), which earns $104,630 on average.
This monetary gender gap prevents women from reaching their full potential, because property matters the most in society. As men are paid more, they have the opportunity to amass more property, leaving women with less ability to remain equal to men. Such trend begins in college.
Men dominate the fields of power. Although women make up 40% of graduates with MBA degrees, they only control 24% CEO positions, allowing men to lead the fate of most businesses. Even more worrisome, while women make up 51% of law school graduates, only 19% of Congress is female, allowing men to lead the fate of the United States. And, men have been proven to rule like tyrants over women on recent occasions. The Uber scandal showed a toxic culture towards women within a technology business dominated by men, and the propositions for a new healthcare bill have shown to exclude women in the drafting process of federal legislation. These disparities in power limit the freedom of women, because the tyrannical rule of men infringes upon the liberty of women to choose the destiny of institutions.
All in all, increasing the number of college graduates will not solve other, more important, problems women face economically. Property is the most important aspect of being free, and men receive a disproportionately large amount of it compared to women. Men have also shown to rule over women like tyrants in male-dominated fields, infringing upon the liberty for women to grow. We must keep pressing for equality of women in society before committing to plans of graduating more students out of college.