Women Have Closed the Gender Gap in Degree Attainments

For many years, more women than men have been enrolled in higher education. Now, new data from the U.S. Census Bureau shows that women have almost closed the gender gap in degree attainments.

In 2011, 30.0 of all women over the age of 25 had obtained at least a four-year college degree. For men, 30.8 percent of all adults were college educated.

There are 31,372,000 women in the United States who are college educated. Some 8.8 million American women have earned master’s degrees. Only 7.2 million American men have master’s degrees.

Men still hold a lead in professional and doctoral degrees. But 1,118,000 women have earned professional degrees and another 1,151,000 women hold doctorates.