A Gender Gap in the Grade Point Averages of College Graduates

Women outpace men in college enrollments and once enrolled, women are more likely than men to graduate from college. Now we present data showing that among students who graduated from college, women performed better academically than men.

New data from the U.S. Department of Education shows a wide gender disparity in the grade point averages of bachelor’s degree recipients. The data shows grades for students who earned their degrees during the 2007-08 academic year.

More than 76 percent of all women who earned a bachelor degree that year had a grade point average of 3.0 or higher. For men, 65.8 percent of all graduates had a grade point average of 3.0 or higher. Some 40 percent of women had grade point averages better than 3.5. For men, 31.6 percent of all graduates had accumulated a GPA of 3.5 or above.

On the other end of the spectrum, 5.1 percent of women graduates and 8.8 percent of men graduates had a GPA of less than 2.5.