Determinants of male and female higher education in the United States

Recently a number of studies 3, 5–11] dealing with the question of demand for higher education have appeared. Most of these studies either deal with the total demand for higher education or with the demand for public and private higher education. So far, the question of higher education demand by sex has not been analyzed. Such analysis may be important for a number of reasons. First, during the period 1951–1970 female enrollment increased by 361 percent whereas male enrollment rose by only 233 percent. Such trends might also continue in the future since the present (1970) enrollment participation rate of high school graduates is only 0.47 for females as compared to 0.68 for males. Second, it is important to test empirically whether parents discriminate when they choose to enroll their children in institutions of higher education. Third, the recent social movement towards equality for both sexes and the efforts of the federal government to provide important jobs to females, should also stimulate a greater demand for education on the part of females. In this paper, we attempt to estimate separately demand functions for higher education in the United States for males and females.