Ryan McGaugh has heard that the numbers are against him.

But McGaugh, sophomore mechanical engineering major, says that the reason men are supposedly an increasing minority on college campuses boils down to dollars.

“A lot of men feel like they have obligations. A lot of guys drop out for work,” McGaugh said.

Women on campus also hold strong opinions about why there are fewer men on campus.

“Guys change schools a lot,” said Elhum Zaker, freshman psychology and communications major. “Girls are more serious about school. Guys are more interested in screwing around.”

A recent article by John Perez, vice chairman of the California Postsecondary Education Commission, and Theresa Montaño, former president of United Teachers Los Angeles, published in the Los Angeles Daily News claims the gender disparity is a serious problem with long-term consequences.

Perez and Montaño said that high-paying union jobs, which men without a college education once relied upon, are being sent overseas. The workforce shift has made post-secondary skills a necessity.

Perez and Montaño also noted that male enrollment numbers will only slip if schools and teachers take no action.

Ed Mills, associate vice president for Enrollment and Student Support at Sacramento State, says the gender difference at Sac State has remained pretty static over the last decade.

“Enrollment of male students has remained at about 43 percent over the last decade,” Mills said. “Fall 2007 male enrollment was 42.6 percent. It hasn’t really changed.”

National male college enrollment is 42.5 percent, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.

Mills said during the 1960s and 70s, college campuses were predominantly male, as high as 70 percent. As more female students began to seek college education, the statistics have changed. The result is that male enrollment has not dropped, but rather that female enrollment has increased.

McGaugh said he felt the deceptive use of statistics drives the perception that male enrollment is falling off when the numbers have remained static.

“The media is part of the problem. The media image is distracting,” McGaugh said.

“The sitcom Friends is a great example. You have a bunch of guys who don’t work sitting around in coffee shops and living in nice apartments in New York. It’s not reality, but people make assumptions that it is supposed to be that way,” McGaugh said.

Derek Fleming can be reached at [email protected]