Dr. Elwood Watson, professor of history and African American studies at East Tennessee State University, recalled that, in 2010, he was shocked to see that many of his classes were two-thirds female. “I was so surprised that I spoke to a few of my colleagues … they noticed identical situations in their classrooms and at their institutions as well,” Watson, a Diverse blogger, wrote at the time.
Today, Watson says he sees a slight leveling of the numbers, but state statistics show that the current composition of East Tennessee State’s 15,200 student population is 42.5 percent male and 57.5 percent female for full-time students, about the same as it was four years ago. At Tennessee’s major public HBCU, Tennessee State University, the disparity is greater: 35.7 percent male to 64.3 percent female. Th roughout the public universities in Tennessee, there are nearly 37,000 more women than men — 99,599 males or 42.2 percent compared to 136,370 women or 57.8 percent.
The Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics reports that 57 percent of students in degree-granting institutions are women. At the nation’s 104 historically Black institutions, 61.5 percent are female.
“It’s not a bad thing that our Black girls are doing well,” says Johnny C. Taylor Jr., president and CEO of the Thurgood Marshall College Fund, which supports public HBCUs. “In fact, it’s good for society and good for the country, but … we need to have our young men also doing well in order to have a healthy, vibrant Black community in the future.”