With female enrollments growing at all levels of higher education, doctoral degrees have been one area where men have continued to dominate. No more. New data being released recently showed that in 2010, for the first time, women earned a majority of the doctoral degrees awarded in the USA. Nathan Bell, director of research and policy analysis for the Council of Graduate Schools, said that the female majority for doctoral recipients was "a natural progression of what we have been seeing" in the rest of higher education. Given that female enrollments have overtaken male enrollments in associate, bachelor’s and master’s programs, he said, "the pipeline is increasingly female." The majority for women in doctoral degrees is not seen in all disciplines. Only 22% of engineering doctorates in 2010 were awarded to women, and only 27% in mathematics and computer science. But the fields in which women now make up a majority go well beyond arts and humanities,and include health sciences and the biological sciences. Further,the rate of increase in doctoral award for women outpaces that for men in all disciplines. Overall, women became the majority of new doctorate recipients in a year in which their numbers increased by 6.1% while male numbers increased by 1%. During the last 10 years, the average annual rate of increase in doctorates earned by women was 5.5 %, more than twice the male percentage of 2.1%. So is the trend of more doctorates going to women than to men something to celebrate (for the academic success of women), to worry about (for the shortage of men),or both Richard Whitmire, the author of Why Boys Fail : Saving Our Sons from an Educational System That’s Leaving Them Behind and the blog Why Boys Fail ,said that he is not surprised by the results,given the trends he has been writing about in high schools and undergraduate colleges. He said that the development with doctorates points to the need for colleges to take seriously not only the issue of falling male enrollments, but also that of the correlations between gender and course of study. Bell, of the Council of Graduate Schools, had a similar view."If the U. S. is to remain competitive and economically strong, it is important that we recruit and retain the best and brightest students in higher education, and that means from all segments of the population, "he said. What does Nathan Bell mean by saying "the pipeline is increasingly female"
A. There are less and less men enrolled at all levels of higher education. B. Women are beginning to dominate all levels of higher education. C. More women are taking higher education to enrich their lives. D. Less and less men are willing to take the route of higher education.