Young College Female Students in early 1960 to 1963 Research Paper

Young College Female Students in early 1960 to 1963 - Research Paper Example It has become one of the basic needs alongside the other needs like food, shelter, and clothing. The need for education traces its roots to the ancient times with the need to read, write, and perform some arithmetic operations that were necessary for daily activities. Education enables individuals to understand different aspects of life in order to lead a positive way of life. It determines career and enables an individual to earn a living. Education at a higher level involves a form of training that equips individuals with knowledge and skills that can be used in different production practices. It helps individual develop a profession. It is a tool used to empower women and the marginalized groups. Education enables individuals to understand their rights and the roles that they should play in the society. Societies comprise different categories of individuals some of which are marginalized. Females and the minority groups have been the subjects of such forms of discrimination in the societies in the past. Education is essential in preventing and managing such kinds of discrimination. Access to education is affected by different social and economic factors. The financial status of an individual may deny one access to higher education that is quite expensive in most countries. The social factors like the culture that prevails in a given society may also influence access to education. In the olden times, more values were given to the males as compared to the females. In such cultures, females were not allowed access to meaningful education. The females were arguably destined to marriage and it was considered meaningless giving them higher formal education. This practice was witnessed in different parts of the world up to the twentieth century. The availability of the learning facilities is also another factor. Proximity to the educational centers can affect an individual’s access to education. Education saw significant developments across the globe over th e last century. It was observed that the number of students enrolled in tertiary colleges in the world increased over two hundred times from 500,000 students in 1900 to over 100 million in 2000.1 The proportion of female enrollment has also increased considerably in the recent decades. Various initiatives have been established in different countries aimed at empowering women and other disadvantaged individuals in the society. Various women activists have emerged to fight discrimination against women through promoting education of the girl child. The modern family planning methods have also enabled females to carry on with their education beyond high school. In the older days, women got married and were in the family way at their early twenties- mostly before college education. Thus, the enrollment of female students in institutions of higher learning changed significantly from the last half of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century. Similarly, the enrollme nt of females in the colleges in the mid twentieth century is significantly different from the current women enrolment in colleges across the globe. This paper focuses on the college enrollment of female students in the United States in the early 1960 to 1963. The pattern of female enrollment that was seen before this period as well as the patterns that have been seen in the following period is also examined. The paper also focuses on the factors that could have contributed to the changes observed in the enrollment patterns. Thesis statement Despite the difficulties that the activists have encountered in the reform movements, female education has improved over the last decades with the female enrollment