Other roads are riskier, but as men such as Bill Gates have shown, the rewards can be impressive. If there is any difference, be it rooted in culture or biology, in the tolerances of young men and women for risk, it would naturally show up more strongly in a buoyant but turbulent economy. If men, more often than women, have attractive alternatives to college, this too would show up in the statistics.
Men are frankly unwelcome in some circles.
This won't stop the typical student, who isn't all that sensitive or thin skinned and can weather the guff to get the degree. But for those sitting on the fence, it could make a difference. Colleges that find it unacceptable to have any major in which men constitute the majority by a visible margin will find that their overall statistics tilt ever more strongly in the other direction. More quotas will not solve a problem that stems in part from a spirit of quotas. Therefore, colleges should not give preference to men.