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This does not necessarily indicate discrimination, researcher says
Most North Carolina public universities have admitted a higher percentage of female applicants than male applicants every year for more than two decades, according to a new analysis of federal education data.
James Nuzzo, a researcher specializing in sociopolitical narratives, compiled data from 2001 to 2024 showing that many North Carolina universities preferred female applicants.
Over the 23-year period, 10 of the 15 UNC System schools consistently favored female applicants, four maintained roughly equal admission rates, and only the UNC School of the Arts admitted a higher percentage of male applicants.
North Carolina State University exhibited the largest sex-based gap in admissions. Over the full 2001–2024 period, women’s admission rate at NC State averaged about 1.1 times that of men, but the disparity grew significantly in recent years. More males than females applied to the school between 2001 and 2018. This trend reversed after 2018.
In 2024, 12 of 15 UNC System schools showed a female admissions preference. Women made up the majority of applicants at nearly every UNC System school, ranging from 51.7 percent at NC State to roughly 70 percent at North Carolina Central University.
At NC State in fall 2024, 46 percent of women who applied were admitted, compared to 38 percent of men, yielding a female-to-male admissions ratio of 1.22.
Nuzzo told The College Fix via email that he analyzed four kinds of data: Women who applied, women who were accepted, men who applied, and men who were accepted.
The female-to-male ratio “is calculated by dividing the percentage of females who applied to a university and were accepted by the percentage of males who applied to the same university and were accepted,” Nuzzo said.
For North Carolina Universities, this calculation often yielded a ratio above 1.0, meaning female applicants were admitted at a higher rate than males, he said.
However, he does not believe these statistics tell the whole story.
“A female-to-male admissions ratio above 1.0 is not necessarily evidence of sex bias or discrimination in university admissions,” he said.
“Similarly, a female-to-male admissions ratio that is less than 1.0 (i.e., male preference) is not necessarily evidence of sex bias or discrimination in university admissions,” Nuzzo added.
Nuzzo told The Fix, “The cause of the female preference needs to be explored.”
“Preference for female applicants simply means that, for whatever reason, universities are admitting a greater percentage of female than male applicants. At this point, I do not know why universities are preferring female applicants,” Nuzzo said.
He also pointed to other types of evidence, such as “high school GPAs, SAT scores, extracurricular activities, personal essays, and letters of recommendation.”
“To determine if a university is exhibiting sex bias or discrimination in its admissions process, we would need to know what factors the university is basing its admissions decisions on. Then, we would need to see the sex-segregated data for those factors,” Nuzzo said.
He clarified that he is not alleging that any North Carolina universities are violating Title IX, but he does believe the “that the unusually high female-to-male admissions ratios at major technical institutes in the United States, like MIT, do warrant legal review.”
The James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal published an additional study earlier this year, similarly stating that “The majority of students sitting in college classrooms today are female.”
In the policy brief that was completed alongside the study, the Martin Center listed five recommendations to address the concern of low male enrollment: “Return to Standardized Tests,” “End all discrimination against men,” “Expand Career-Oriented Pathways,” “Promote Alternative Admissions Pipelines,” and “Market Workforce Pell.”
“Colleges and universities can take several concrete steps to remove barriers to male enrollment,” the policy brief states.
It also states, “This trend is a problem for universities because they are failing to convince a growing number of men that a college education is worth their time and financial investment.”
“Men are perceiving real problems within higher education, namely rampant politicization and the poor return on investment of a college degree,” it states.
The Fix reached out to the James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal, the American Institute for Boys and Men, North Carolina State University, and University of North Carolina System. None responded.
