This week I took two of my sons on a tour of five Christian colleges.  We learned many things, but the issue I want to highlight right now involves the fact that fewer men are ready for college at age 18 than women, in this current generation. Is this caused by environmental contamination with BPA, a synthetic estrogen found in water bottles and tin can linings?

The uneven gender split is an underlying issue at all colleges now.  Some simply admit qualified students. If they don’t do any gender preference, the student body is at least 55 percent women, or as much as 60 percent women. That causes strange social situations.  So most of these colleges are quietly giving preference to male applicants, in order to have an on-campus split that is closer to 50-50.

One tour guide, a senior at a college in Pennsylvania, was frank about it.  One set of parents on the tour had been unaware of the issue, and expressed surprise when the tour guide said that men received preference in admissions. She explained it to them–”There are more women ready for college than men these days.”  And the men who do come to college are strangely apathetic, she said. They aren’t taking leadership positions. The mission trips planned by students are all being planned by the women, she said.

“We need male leadership at this college,” she told the five students on the tour, all male.  “If you can provide leadership, please come here.”

I have addressed the epidemic of underachieving young men on this blog  before, linking it to the pervasiveness of the contaminant BPA in our environment. Dr. Leonard Sax, MD, PhD, made the link between the underachieving and the BPA in a 2007 book.  Check out my posts here:

http://www.home-water-filter.info/blog/estrogens-in-plastic-water-bottles-affect-our-boys/

http://www.home-water-filter.info/blog/underachieving-young-men-in-thc