Utah Women in Higher Education: A Progress Report 2018

Utah’s population is growing and changing. While Utah maintains its signature demographics, it is also trending toward the nation in key metrics. Utah is becoming more ethnically diverse, fertility is decreasing, and migration has become a consistent and significant source of population growth. Within this changing context, Utah women and men have made great strides toward increasing postsecondary educational attainment. As an increasing proportion of adults now hold a college degree or trade certificate, the state grows closer to reaching its goal of 66% of the population holding a postsecondary degree or certificate by 2020. Despite these gains, however, Utah faces a shortage of educated workers. In addition, national organizations consistently rank Utah at or near the bottom in evaluations of women’s educational attainment and economic equality relative to other states. In this report we outline findings of a year-long project, funded by the Utah Women in the Economy Commission, focused on understanding these issues.

State-Level Comparisons

Different patterns emerge when we divide the population into age groups. Women make up a greater proportion of enrollees in the 18–24 and 35–44 age groups, and men represent 60% of enrollees in the 25–34 age group. These differences may reflect Utah cultural patterns such as for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) missions for young men (and increasingly young women), participation in childbearing for women, and graduate degree attainment for Utah men. In this 25–34 age group, married men are more likely to be enrolled and married women are less likely to be enrolled. Both men and women are less likely to be enrolled in postsecondary education if their household includes their own children who are less than five years old, but this association is more than twice as strong for women. Similar patterns exist for graduate school enrollment. We cannot determine causal relationships given the cross-sectional nature of the ACS, but these findings suggest that men’s and women’s educational attainment may have different timelines and may be sensitive in different ways to demographic characteristics and family formation behaviors.

State and National Comparisons

Given the progress we have made in Utah, why does our state continue to rank toward the bottom of the list compared to other states? Although Utah women actively pursue postsecondary education, their activities have not kept pace with those of US women. Nationally, women represent a greater share of enrollees and have higher degree attainment. Utah women earn lower-level degrees, pursue lower-paying and stereotypically-female fields of study, and have poorer economic outcomes compared to US women

Life Course of Utah Students

Students who enter a USHE institution for the first time are grouped into one of three categories: early freshman (within 12 months of graduating from high school), later freshman (outside of 12 months from graduating from high school), or transfer student. Women represented more of the later freshmen (about 69% in 2017) and fewer of the early freshmen (about 45% in 2017). Beyond the first term, they made up more than half of freshmen and sophomore students at most USHE institutions. Women also made up at least 50% of junior and senior students at all institutions except for Utah Valley University and the University of Utah. Since about 2007 the gap in representation among class levels has narrowed. In 2017 women made up between 47–55% of all undergraduate class levels.

To learn more about Utah Women in Higher Education, 2000-2017 read the entire brief.