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The Growing Gap Between Females and Males in Educational Attainment in Texas: Evaluating Outcomes for the 8th Grade Cohort

ByBlake Decker

This blog post serves as the second in our summer series where we are looking at the the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board’s (THECB) 8th grade cohort study, now known as the “Texas Talent Trajectory (T3)” project. In our previous blog post, we noted that 76% (823,083) of the 1.08 million students in the combined three-year 8th-grade cohort (FY2011-FY2013) did not earn a high school diploma and/or a higher education credential in Texas during the 11 years after entering the 8th grade in Texas public middle schools. With that data as the backdrop, we will look at differences in outcomes between female and male students progressing from 8th grade to high school graduation, enrollment in higher education in Texas, and  completion of a higher education credential in Texas. 

Texas Talent Trajectory (T3) Data Comparison by Sex

Using the drop-down selector in the visualization below, we can toggle through three different timepoints in determining success for students in the 8th-grade cohort.

  • High School Diploma: Overall, just over 8 out of 10 students in the 8th-grade cohort earned a high school diploma in Texas. Female students completed high school at a rate that was four percentage points (83% vs 79%) higher than male students in the 3-year cohort. Female students had more high school graduates (438,470) than male students (437,767), even though there were originally more male students (553,922) in the original cohort than female students (527,306).
  • Higher Education Enrollment: The separation between females and males increases greatly when looking at how many members of the 8th-grade cohort in the T3 data enrolled in higher education in Texas after high school. More than 302K female students (57%) of the 8th-grade cohort enrolled in either a 2-year or 4-year public or independent institution in Texas, whereas 261K male students (47%) enrolled in Texas higher education institutions. Disconcerting for universities in Texas is the fact that less than 1 in 5 (19%) male students in the 8th-grade cohort entered a 4-year institution in Texas after high school, while 1 in 4 (25%) female students in the 8th-grade cohort enrolled at a Texas 4-year institution within 6 years of graduating from high school.
  • Higher Education Credential: Across the three types of credentials tracked by THECB (certificate, associate’s degree, bachelor’s degree), less than 25% of the 1.08M students in the 8th-grade cohort earned a higher education credential within 11 years of entering 8th grade in Texas. There is a 9.6 percentage point gap between female students (29.5%) and male students (19.9%) in the 8th-grade cohort in terms of completing a higher education credential in Texas within 6 years of high school graduation.
NOTES: Current T3 data do not include enrollment and earning of credentials at out-of-state higher education institutions. These data, plus employment outcomes, will be added by THECB in the future. Hovering over the nodes and links in the Sankey diagram show additional information.
Female students in the 8th-grade cohort out-perform male counterparts across practically all measures of success.
Abbreviations: "HE" = Higher Education | "F" = Female | "M" = Male

So What?

When “starting the clock” in the 8th grade for academic outcomes, the data for the state of Texas does not look promising, especially when it comes to educating male students in Texas. Although male students made up more than 51% of the 8th-grade cohort, they trail female students in each metric, with the gap widening from high school graduation to higher education enrollment to earning a higher education credential. Expanding the data beyond the 8th-grade cohort, THECB’s most recent data show that 59% of the more than 302K credentials awarded by Texas public institutions in AY2022 were awarded to female students. Disaggregated by institution type, the credential awarded gap ranges from 14 percentage points (57% to 43% in favor of females) at community, technical, and state colleges to a gap of 44 percentage points (72% to 28% in favor of female students) at health-related institutions. At Texas public universities, the gap is 20 percentage points, with 60% of degrees awarded to female students compared to 40% awarded to male students in AY2022. These general trends, as well as those associated with the 8th-grade cohort, are certainly worth keeping in mind as policymakers and leaders in higher education in Texas work to achieve the state’s educational and economic goals in the future.