Before the 1970s, men outnumbered women in total fall enrollments at colleges and universities in the United States. By the mid 1970s, however, women edged out men in enrollment, and the gap has only widened since. This ratio change first arose in public universities, but later extended to the private sphere. As of 2012, 71 percent of graduating high school females enrolled in college, compared to just 61 percent of graduating high school males. Within colleges, however, men still outnumber women in certain fields. Engineering schools, for example, are often overwhelmingly male. South Dakota State University's School of Engineering is 87 percent male, for example, while its School of Nursing is 85 percent female.
A 2010 study by sociology professors Jeremy Uecker and Mark Regnerus found that women attending colleges where men are a small proportion of the student body are less likely to date and less likely to have a college boyfriend, but are more likely to be sexually active. In 2009, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights began investigating 19 colleges for evidence that it discriminated against women in college admissions in the face of rising female enrollment.