higher-education

According to the National Center for Education Statistics, 17.6 million students attended U.S. postsecondary institutions in 2009. Of these, more than a third chose to study part-time or discontinuously. While such nontraditional attendance can make education possible that otherwise wouldn’t be, research has suggested that it is also associated with lower graduation rates, higher education expenses and a reduction in total wages over the course of one’s working life.

According to survey data, American women consistently score lower on questions of political knowledge than do men. This difference makes women less likely to vote, run for office or communicate with their elected representatives. However, the root causes and structural barriers that explain this persistent gender gap in political knowledge — typically a 10-point difference in surveys — are not well understood.

A 2011 study in Demography, “The Black Gender Gap in Educational Attainment: Historical Trends and Racial Comparisons” (PDF), uses Census data from 1940 to 2000, with additional data from the Census Bureau’s companion American Community Survey, to compare higher education completion rates for black men and women between 1940 and 2000.