In an impressive increase from years past, 39 percent of women in the United States had completed four years or more of college in 2022. This figure is up from 3.8 percent of women in 1940. A significant increase can also be seen in males, with 36.2 percent of the U.S. male population having completed four years or more of college in 2022, up from 5.5 percent in 1940.

4- and 2-year colleges

In the United States, college students are able to choose between attending a 2-year postsecondary program and a 4-year postsecondary program. Generally, attending a 2-year program results in an Associate’s Degree, and 4-year programs result in a Bachelor’s Degree.

Many 2-year programs are designed so that attendees can transfer to a college or university offering a 4-year program upon completing their Associate’s. Completion of a 4-year program is the generally accepted standard for entry-level positions when looking for a job.

Earnings after college

Factors such as gender, degree achieved, and the level of postsecondary education can have an impact on employment and earnings later in life. Some Bachelor’s degrees continue to attract more male students than female, particularly in STEM fields, while liberal arts degrees such as education, languages and literatures, and communication tend to see higher female attendance.

All of these factors have an impact on earnings after college, and despite nearly the same rate of attendance within the American population between males and females, men with a Bachelor’s Degree continue to have higher weekly earnings on average than their female counterparts.

In the academic year of 2020/21, about 860,760 male and 1.2 million female students earned a Bachelor's degree in the United States. By the academic year of 2031/32, the number of male Bachelor's degree recipients is expected to reach 975,020.

Bachelor’s degrees in the United States

American students typically earn a Bachelor’s degree for an undergraduate course of study and it is normally completed in four years. Depending on the major, students receive a Bachelor of Arts, Bachelor of Science, Bachelor of Business Administration, Bachelor of Fine Arts, or another type of certificate.

In 2021, about 1.17 million white students earned a Bachelor's degree, followed by 324,848 Hispanic students.

Bachelor's degrees and earnings

When looking at the mean income of Bachelor’s degree holders in 2021, there are marked differences between the female and male Bachelor’s degree holders. Men with a Bachelor’s degree earned about 107,315 U.S. dollars per year, compared to women, who earned 77,099 U.S. dollars per year. In addition, salaries tended to increase the more educated a person was.

Graph and download economic data for Unemployment Rate - College Graduates - Bachelor's Degree, 25 years and over, Women (CGBD25OW) from Jan 2000 to Aug 2025 about 25 years +, tertiary schooling, females, education, unemployment, rate, and USA.

This statistic shows the total number of students who graduated from postsecondary institutions in Canada from 2000 to 2020, distinguished by gender. In 2020, about 334,000 women received a certificate, diploma, or degree from a postsecondary institution in Canada.

Graph and download economic data for Unemployment Rate - College Graduates - Bachelor's Degree, 20 to 24 years, Women (CGBD2024W) from Jan 2000 to Aug 2025 about 20 to 24 years, tertiary schooling, females, education, unemployment, rate, and USA.

The proportion of male and female postsecondary graduates, by Classification of Instructional Programs, Primary groupings (CIP_PG), International Standard Classification of Education (ISCED) and age group.

This statistic shows the total number of students who graduated from postsecondary institutions in Canada in 2021, distinguished by gender and field of study. In 2021, a total of 27,690 women graduated with a degree in humanities in Canada.

In all 25 OECD countries listed here, completion rates from bachelor's programs were higher among women than among men. The share of women who completed their bachelor's degree within the theoretical time frame varied from ** percent in Colombia to ** percent in the United Kingdom. Among men, students in the United Kingdom had the highest completion rates.

The number of postsecondary graduates, by Classification of Instructional Programs, Primary groupings (CIP_PG), International Standard Classification of Education (ISCED), age group and gender.

The main content of this dataset includes the gender ratio of overseas Chinese students graduating from college in various years.

College graduates by detailed field of study, institution, program type, credential type, status of student in Canada and gender.

In 2023, recent male university graduates in the United States expected to have an average salary of ****** U.S. dollars at their first job after graduation while female university graduates expected an average salary of ******. In comparison, the expected average starting salary was ****** U.S. dollars for all recent college graduates in that year.

This dataset provides information on the number of students enrolled in public colleges and universities in Qatar, categorized by college and gender. It includes various colleges such as Education, Arts and Sciences, Sharia and Islamic Studies, Engineering, Business and Economics, and Law. This dataset helps in analyzing the distribution of male and female students across different academic disciplines in public higher education institutions in Qatar.

The number of graduates by institution type, program type, credential type, gender and Classification of Instructional Programs, Primary groupings (CIP_PG).

The number of postsecondary graduates, by institution type, International Standard Classification of Education (ISCED), Classification of Instructional Programs, Primary groupings (CIP_PG), status of student in Canada and gender.

The number of graduates from the Police College by gender (data starting time: 88 years)

France: Ratio of female to male students in tertiary level education: The latest value from 2022 is 1.24 percent, an increase from 1.23 percent in 2021. In comparison, the world average is 1.21 percent, based on data from 117 countries. Historically, the average for France from 1979 to 2022 is 1.15 percent. The minimum value, 0.87 percent, was reached in 1980 while the maximum of 1.24 percent was recorded in 2022.

In the academic year 2024, the enrollment rate in universities and junior colleges reached around **** percent for male students and **** percent for female students in Japan. The share of young women attending higher education institutions increased more than ******* in the past 60 years. The overall direct enrollment rate after high school graduation was ** percent.

This dataset contains the total first-year retention rates and counts (Fall to Fall) for new first-time, full-time, degree-seeking undergraduate students, disaggregated by gender. It covers all public community colleges and state universities in Massachusetts, and the University of Massachusetts since 2013.

This dataset is 1 of 3 datasets that is also published in the interactive Retention of First-Time, Full-Time Students dashboard on the Department of Higher Education Data Center:

Public Postsecondary First Year Retention: Summary Public Postsecondary First Year Retention by Race Public Postsecondary First Year Retention by Gender

Definitions: - Retention is characterized when a new first-time, full-time student who was enrolled in their first Fall semester is again enrolled in their second Fall semester. - Adjusted Cohort Count: the number of first-year students in a cohort, excluding those who graduated within the first year. - Retained Any Institution is determined by finding students enrolled in the next Fall at other MA Public Institutions using Massachusetts Department of Higher Education data or elsewhere using NSC data. - Cohort identification: These are the Fall Term Credit Students, identified with a cohort when their current registration = New; their New Student Type = Degree-seeking; and enrollment is full-time with >= 12 credits.

Notes: - To comply with data privacy laws, Bucketing is used as a form of data suppression. If a gender category has <= 6 students, then its data is combined with the next largest gender category and the gender is labeled as "Other." - Data appear as reported to the Massachusetts Department of Higher Education.

The paper assesses gender differences in pre-labor market specialization among the college-educated and highlights how those differences have evolved over time. Women choose majors with lower potential earnings (based on male wages associated with those majors) and subsequently sort into occupations with lower potential earnings given their major choice. These differences have narrowed over time, but recent cohorts of women still choose majors and occupations with lower potential earnings. Differences in undergraduate major choice explain a substantive portion of gender wage gaps for the college-educated above and beyond simply controlling for occupation. Collectively, our results highlight the importance of understanding gender differences in the mapping between college major and occupational sorting when studying the evolution of gender differences in labor market outcomes over time.