The U has been seeing a growing trend over the past few years of fewer female graduates.
According to the Women’s Resource Center, women make up 44 percent of the U’s undergraduate population. Nationally, 55 percent of all undergraduates are women.
The low female enrollment seems to be U specific, as Brigham Young University, Weber State University and Utah State University all have a female enrollment of at least 49 percent.
Each year, the U has anywhere from 1,000 to 2,000 fewer female students than other Utah universities.
Elizabeth Tashjian, chairwoman of the U Presidential Commission on the Status of Women, said one of the U’s goals is to make the university more appealing to women in Utah.
“We want to attract more women, help more women and retain more women at the U,” she said.
The U’s Institutional Analysis Department offered data suggesting that the enrollment issue grows with student seniority and is specific to white students.
This Fall Semester, freshman women were close behind men in first-year enrollment, with 1,835 first-year women and 2,033 first-year men. But by the time students reach their fourth year, women fall behind in enrollment numbers. This fall, there were 3,386 fourth-year female students as opposed to 4,666 fourth-year male students.
The same data also show a correlation to white students as opposed to minority students enrolled at the U. Minority women are either equally numbered to men in the same ethnic group or have greater numbers. By the fourth-year level, minority women in all ethnic groups studied have greater numbers than their male counterparts.