Women Have Almost Closed the Gender Gap in Degree Attainments

New data from the U.S. Census Bureau shows 31.4 percent of American men over the age of 25 now have a college degree. For women, the figure is 30.6 percent. While in recent years, women have reached or surpassed equality in new degree attainments, the large lead among older men in degree attainments compared to older women gives men a slight overall lead among all living Americans over the age of 25.

Men continue to hold a large lead over women in professional and doctoral degree attainments. There are 1,938,000 men with professional degrees and only 1,155,000 women. There are 2,016,000 men who hold doctoral degrees and only 1,162,000 women.