A woman's performance in high school seems to be the strongest indicator that she will go on to college. Several U.S. Department of Education reports have shown that girls get better grades and have higher grade-point averages in high school than their male cohorts. Generally, their grade-point averages will be higher if they stick with it through the bachelor's degree too. Women's studious habits may be the result, in part, of their anxiety over earning adequate wages once they've entered the work force, MacLachlan said. Wage disparity probably plays a role.
Women are far more anxious about earning a living than men.
Knowing that they are not going to make the same wages may drive them to higher standards. Women have gained the most ground in graduate school enrollments in recent years, however. Nationwide, they accounted for 56 percent of graduate students in 1996, compared with 39 percent of the graduate school enrollments in 1970, the U.S. Department of Education report pointed out. At Berkeley, women graduate students inched past men for the first time in the fall of 2000, outnumbering them by five. The trend among minorities is less encouraging.