Funding for To The Contrary provided by: This week on To The Contrary: First, women are taking over law, medical and vet schools and changing the future of the workforce, and nearly half of young wome would move abroad if they could, signaling deep frustration with life in America.

Hello, I'm Bonnie Erbé.

Welcome to To The Contrary, a discussion of news and social trends from a variety of perspectives.

Up first, higher education.

Women now outnumber men in many professional and graduate schools, including law medical and veterinary programs.

Wome earn 40% more doctoral degrees and nearly twice as many master's degrees as men in those fields.

Men's college enrollmen has fallen nearly 4% since 2020, and many choose trades or jobs straight out of high school.

This shift affects universities, the economy and workforce planning.

Experts worry about long term consequences if men continue to lag in higher education.

Joining me this week are conservative Ann Stone, political reporter Jessica Washington, New York Amsterdam News Sam Bennett and Republican strategist Whitley Yates.

So Ann Stone, let's start with y What does this mean?

And the fact not only that women are goin more towards law and medicine, but also men are going more towards technology.

What does this mean for the future workforce?

I think it's a natural trend given our predilections.

And it's funny, I stop to think about it.

All of my doctors are female, except my eye doctor, hadn't even thought about it before this article.

I think it's a good thing.

Were the nurturers, it plays to a lot of strengths we have as a gender.

So, I'm happy with it.

This increase in women in higher education— Some researchers are saying that when women star entering into a field, men exit.

And I think that's part o the phenomenon we're seeing now.

I think it's good all around.

More women getting educated, me deciding to go into technology and be the next Mark Zuckerberg or Elon Musk.

I think it's good all around for society.

Yeah, I think more women in higher education is a good thing.

I think, like Sam said, it is likely we'll se a devaluing of that education.

So it's not altogether shocking.

Is it good?

I mean, there's been so many stories about how AI and technolog are really kind of anti female; that women, when they try to go into those fields, even when they have a a natural affinity for it and they're talented at it, they kind of get, you know, shunned asid by the predominant population.

So is it good and is it goo that if you want a male doctor in any one of a number of specialties, you not only have to find a man, you have to usually go with someone who was not born in this country.

Or at least that's what's happening in major cities.

Or you have to go with a female.

And that's a bad thing, Bonnie, why?

Well, it's because people— Why should certain genders, certain races, be segregated from anything?

Except it's self-segregation.

So that's okay with me.

Men are going into the trades and AI because they see more money there too.

And they see that higher educatio hasn't always been kind to them.

They dont want to be saddled with student debt, etc.

and they have other other ways of upward mobility.

So what makes women, and people of color so— have it easier to be able to be saddled with student debt, because it is huge if you go to graduate school these days.

There's less generational wealth.

There's less generational wealth to avoid student debt in those populations.

Currently, men still are overrepresented compare to women in the medical field.

So we still— there are still more male doctor than there are female doctors.

But you have seen more women move into this field, which I think is an amazing thing.

I mean, as you pointed ou earlier, Sam, I think, you know, we're going to see—if we see more women in this field, we're likely going to see these lower wages.

And the reason women are more likely to be saddled with student debt is because even with those educations, they're not being paid the same amount as a man with a master's degree or even a man with a college degree in many cases.

And this is especially true for women of color.

So they're getting these same educations that cost the same amount of money, and ye they're not being paid the same.

So they can't pay off their loans at the same rate.

But why do they go into it then if they know going in, they're going to come out hugely in debt?

I think we're all being sold a dream, a lot of people, that this is the wa that you move up in this country and yet we haven't set up a system that allows people to move up without taking on these huge amounts of debt.

And so we keep seeing these economic systems reinforced where the wealthy get these degrees, and they're able to continue to make more and more money, whereas people from lower incom backgrounds are really saddled with debt.

Absolutely.

And I think that generational wealth plays a very important critical role in this, where families that have, you know, over and over again, communities of color, when they advance in generational wealth, the underpinnings of it are ripped away from them legislatively, socially and otherwise.

So I think we're really looking at systemic racism right in the eye, particularly impacts women of color.

I think you're going to see real pressure for student debt to be driven down a couple different ways.

One is the pressure on higher education to lower what they're charging because it's outrageous.

Increases are absolute insane.

And I think with more and more women, people of color being, you know, a majority in that area, you will see societal pressure to bring it down.

But Ann, let me ask you a question because, yes, the horrors of the world have these multi-bazillion dollar endowments, but it's really not true for anything but the very, very top tier of schools and a lot of schools are state schools, which means they get their money from the states.

If the state incomes are going down then colleges are immediately in trouble.

So what, i anything, should public policy be to respond to this, to do nothing as I think the Trump administration would continue to do, or to come up with programs that entice more peopl into different kinds of fields?

I think both and I think, again, there should be pressure for higher education to lower its cost because a lot of it's going into administrative, not to the quality of what people get in the classroom.

And I think there will be that pressure and there'll be more competition, hopefully for loans in the future.

In what, 2009, all the loan went to the federal government.

And that's ironically when the interest rates got out of control.

So, there probably needs to be more competition in—you know, I got my student loan at 2%.

Now, granted, I'm ancient, but, you know, returning to a day where you had student loan at more reasonable, like at 4%, something like that, as opposed to what it is now.

Yeah, there's a lot of deregulation that has crippled a lot of folks that took those loans.

But I think it's also important that you have creative municipalities like New York City that will pay for your education for free if you stay there.

The CUNY you can get a college education for free from CUNY.

Well, it used to be everybody who went to CUNY got— including my father, got their education for free.

I mean, but this was also many years ago when the cost of education was a whole lot lower than it is now.

And I was a regent scholar, so from New York State.

So I had all my tuition paid for as a regent scholar.

So I agree with Ann 100% on some of the things that she's saying.

Creative municipalities, creative states, I think, is where we're going to be seeing most of the action on this front.

If you want more doctors, if you want more teachers, educate them, ask them to stay for a couple years and educate them.

And I think we're seeing more and more of that cropping up around the country.

I do think it's interesting that the Trump administration has reclassified professional degrees to push down the cost of these academic institution squeezing the federal government out of money.

They've capped how much they're willing to give for a lo of these professional degrees.

So I believe that schools need to go ahead and bend to the will of the federal government.

If they say we're only giving $50,000 per year, that they're not pricing out education.

But I do find it interestin when we're talking about male— male men not going to college and things of that nature.

It's like men can't win.

When they were entering college at high rates, it was where all the women, now that they are choosing alternative paths, whether that be ecosystems for entrepreneurship or technology, it's like how is this going to affect us?

And I think what we need to do is be able to flow with the tides, whether that's men being in school or women going to get professional degrees or being in technology or entrepreneurship.

I think that you're going to see an increase of young people in all of these areas, in the next couple of years.

But I feel like it's a lose-lose situation because we complain if there are too many men, now we will complain if there's not enough in these specific fields.

Well I don't know about complaining if that's the right word, but many, many years ago, like decades ago, we actually went to Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh, where they had set up one of the first computer programs in the country.

Of course, now most colleges have them.

But what women were reportin was that they came up with ideas that were much closer to the consumer, things that the consumer actually needed, whereas men were talking about, oh my, you know, my RAM is this much versus how much is yours?

And it was like one big masculine contest with each other.

And the women didn't even fit in at all.

They didn't think that way.

Is there any way to lure people who want to bring different idea and keep them in those fields, to go into computer sciences, for example?

I do think that there is room and I think when we think about capitalism and the the construct of capitalism, it's all about competition.

But once you're in a field, it should really be about complementing each other.

So if that means that wome are great in producing results that are closer to the consumer experience then making sure that there are pathways for that.

And if men are great at the big picture ideas, making sure that we're complementing each other and how we work together collaboratively to continue to push industries forward.

But, you know, I have to laugh, Bonnie.

It reminds me, they did studies of male and female, you know, children—boys and girls.

And they found that female babies recognized and reacted to faces.

At the same time, boys reacted more to inanimate objects and blinking lights.

So it sort of carries into their adulthood.

Just to be capitalist for a second.

Let's just make all student loan costs— Let's make all student tuition costs and college cost tax deductible.

Let's do that.

If you don't have any incom to deduct these costs against, why would that help bring more women?

If you have parents who are on the bubble of really struggling and trying to help their children get through college, it could make an enormous difference.

It helps shield the rest of their income.

And we have not yet made college 100% tax deductible.

We should, because we're investing in the future of the nation.

But why would plumbers, electricians, etc.

want to be paying for your education?

Exactly.

Because it's important for the health of the nation.

That is where our doctors are going to come from, our teachers are going to come from, the folks that keep our country humming and growing and achieving.

Plumbers and electricians keep us growing, too.

You have to fin a more equitable way to do it, because screwing one part of the country for the other is— Its not screwing.

It's an investment in the lon term health of our nation, Ann.

They would think it is.

Seriously, there are— there are societal differences on the opinions here, but is it not possibl to convince the female partners or the wives of these plumbers and electricians that if they want a female OB-GYN, it'd be nice to lure some more women into that field?

No.

Why not?

Because they look at their checkbook and they—no.

They look at the tax returns and they say, no.

But, Sam, what you said earlier, the thin that they do all over the world, and that is if you needed a particular trade or person, you give them incentives if they will have the education and stay in an area and service it, because you have trouble getting doctors in rural areas that that may be a better way to do it.

And in subsidizing the educatio specifically for those reasons for a local area, that that would make sense.

Sure.

No, let's do that too.

I'm all in, Ann, let's do it.

Let's do both of them.

And I'm all in with all of you.

This has bee a great discussion.

Thank you.

Let us know what you think.

Follow me @tothecontrary or on X. From college to leaving the US.

About 4 in 10 young American women say they would move abroad if they could.

Less than one fifth of men say the same.

Experts suggest this is less about actually leaving and mor about frustration with politics, gender inequality and declining trust in institutions.

Events like the overturning of Roe v Wade and ongoing sexual harassment concerns contribute to this sentiment.

So, Jessica, is it true that these are the events turning women of and they're not turning men off in the same percentages?

I think so, I mean, I thin clearly the fall of Roe v Wade, different policy choices taken by the Trump administration.

And you can agree with them or disagree with them.

But there are a lot of young women who feel a lot of fear connected to those policy decisions, whether or not you agree with them.

I mean, we can talk about rescinding guidance on EMTALA, different policie that have really scared women.

I think also the changing cultural norms.

We're seeing online, young me moving really far to the right in way that are scary to young women.

So I'm not surprised at all that there are a lot of women who are feeling as if their place in this world is shrinking, as we're seeing both culture and policy shif in a direction that favors men.

But the US doesn't have a trademark on, sex, sexual harassment, sexual discrimination.

I mean, I'm sure it exists.

I don't know if it exists in as great percentages as it does in this country, but certainly in countries in the less developed world, Africa, South Asia, etc.. I mean, there is plenty of anti female prejudice, no?

100%.

And then so I think what you said at the beginning is interesting, which is that this is maybe less a sentiment about I want to move to X, Y and Z country and more a feeling of frustration with the policie and culture in the United States and how thats shifting.

So I think it's less about I wanted to move to this country because I think it'll be better for women and better for me as a woman.

I think it's more about expressing their displeasure with the current state of things and where it feels like this country is going.

During Trump's first term, there was a lot of talk, and actually I didn't know anybody personally who moved to another country.

But my parents generation, a lot of those people did actually move mainly to Europe.

I was shocked at the hype— at least of that milieu, if you will.

And this tim I—again, I've heard talk of it.

I've heard tons of frustration.

I've heard people of bot genders really sick of the way the extreme right turn of this country, how, you know, immigrants both innocent and guilty of some kinds of crimes, but mainly innocent, are getting tossed out or just picked up anywher and thrown out like the student, the female student from I believe it was Massachusetts, which—and I believe the Trump administration said that was a mistake, but they didn't do anything to bring her back that I know of.

And please correct me if I'm wrong about that.

Since you founded this sho in 1992, the year of the woman, Bonnie, we have seen a steady, inexorable decline in women's rights in this nation.

Not an increase.

I think as the world's richest nation, with the largest economy, we've been kind of sleepwalking, I would suggest, in the women's movement, because, okay, if we're the world's largest country with the largest economy therefore we must be better off.

Nothing could be further fro the truth and as Jess pointed— Jessica pointed out the Roe versus Wade has really precipitously declined our rankings.

We are across all global indices of the rights of women, quality of life of women.

We're currently around 42 or 43rd of the 192 nations recognized by the United Nations.

That is craziness.

We have the largest economy, were the world's richest nation.

Back when you founded the show, Bonnie, we were one of the leaders.

We had more women in electe office than any other country.

Now we're ranked 100th.

So we have been in sleepwalking mode.

And honestly, my hope is that the disastrous decline, the rollback of Roe v Wade and all these other affronts to women will catalyze a new generation to stand up and fight and demand our rights the way Icelandic women did earlier in this era.

If I might jump in after we've just had two sessions of doom and gloom, women's rights in some measures may have gone down.

But overall, you know, as a pro-choice Republican, I'll tell you, since the Roe went back to the states, abortion has increased, not decreased.

The Trump administration is not going against medical abortion, which is two thirds of abortion now.

And in fact, the pro-life is very angry with them because they're not doing a lot of the stuff they want them to do to limit abortion even more.

So there's that.

But, you know, we've advanced in education.

We've advance in, in, you know, occupations, in all kinds of other measures that are very good for women.

So again— But one—but Ann, let me— let me just argue with yo for a second because I went to the UN conferences on women, the last two of them.

And, it was kind of disheartening to watch the US go from up here to down there in terms of women's political leadership.

And of course, that goes like this with issues mainly affecting women.

Like abortion is not an issue that only affects women, of course, but it mainly affects women.

And we saw a lot of young American women just get out of politics, los interest, stop paying attention, quite frankly.

And you think it's going great for women, you know since Trump has been in office.

But that's mainly white women of means.

It's not low income women of color.

And they have really fallen down and they have— jobs are getting scarcer for them.

Education is getting tougher to get.

It's all on a downward slope for them.

What I'm saying as somebody who's gone to 66 different countries, most of those countries have quotas for women in office and all that.

So when you have the measure of, you know, women in political leadership, it's not apples to apples.

Here, if women don't want to run, they don't run.

And they have gotten discouraged.

Women have always thought politics was dirty and have shied away from it, but that's on us.

That's not on the system because we have every right to do it.

And when Republican women, especially pro-choice Republican women run, they have a greater chance of being elected overall in the electorate.

We just can't get as many to run.

Because the public opinion on this is changing.

But go ahead.

What you were going to say.

They just don't want, they just dont want to b a part of it and part of thats overall, I would blame the media more than anything else in terms of creating a toxic climate for women in this country, so badly that there actually was a thing on the radio the other day where these two white women were buying guns because they were afraid, and they're white American women.

They're afraid ICE is going to come get them.

I mean, that's insane, but the— Well, ICE killed a white woman in Minneapolis for sitting in her car.

No, not just for sitting in her car, we wont go there.

But the point is, the average white woman is not going to get hunted down by ICE.

I mean, the media has just hyped this up so badly.

They've terrified people, they've terrified women specifically.

I'm sorry.

You cannot blame the media for the malfeasance of ICE.

Well, I think we need to take a step back.

And the idea or the thought that women are considering moving to another country shouldn't hang solely on the administration.

When you think about women in marriage and being more likely to file for divorce when they're unhappy, we think about a lot of the studies that we've hear and talked about on this show.

When it comes to women's happiness, they a lot of times are more sad.

I mean, if we're going to just put it out there, a lot of times they're the cornerstones of their family.

If they're working, they're raising children.

They're the cornerstones at their church.

And so I think just in general, when women are upset, sad or feel unfulfilled looking for some type of escape, whether that be divorce, a getaway, whether that be moving away should not seem foreign.

With shows on TV that are you know, number one rated shows like Emily in Paris, a woman who picks up, leaves everything in America, moves to Paris to live this romanticized lifestyle or eat, pray, love, which there are books written about things of this nature where you're just looking t experience something different because you feel unfulfilled in where you are.

Now.

I will say that the political atmosphere, and I'll say that on both sides.

So when a Republican is in office, obviousl Democratic women are less happy.

When a Democrat is in office Republican women are less happy.

That's just the way that it goes.

But I will say there is a culture in America with social media, of alway looking for what you don't have, right?

The looks you don't have, the material items that you don't have.

And consumerism is now driving a lot of our attention and influence.

And so I think that overall, women may just feel unfulfilled and want to change something.

A lot of times they cut their hair, but maybe it's moving to another place to get a different perspective or a different experience.

Other thoughts for how we change this attitude of— first of all, I mean, nobody would deny that materialism has grown in importance in this culture to the point where I believe it's almost ridiculous.

And I once read— this goes back a few years, but I'm sure it hasn't really changed, that when The Cosby Show was on TV, forget about him and his sexual allegations.

I'm just saying at that time, it came out that most of the primetime shows showed people living in houses that were hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars more expensive to buy than what the average American could afford.

And so this— And you know this— the sports stars all get their super hot cars, and everybody's spending money left, right and center except the people sitting in front of the TV at home stuck watching it because they can't afford to go to the movies.

So what does anybody suggest about how to change this, to make Americ a more friendly place for women?

I find the Icelandic women's example so powerful.

They all went on strike.

They all did.

And they now have the most women friendly legislation across the board across all sectors in the world.

The Rwandan women in Africa at the fall of that nation.

It was empowered by the UN.

The Rwandan women without quotas all ran for office.

Right.

And so I think we as women underestimate the collective power we have to stand up and say we're just not going to put up with it anymore.

And that would be my vote.

But as someone who's been to Rwand and been to the museum in Rwanda and all the people who were killed during that war— It was terrible.

I mean, there was somethin like 70% of the male population of that country was kille and slaughtered, during the war, not even during the war just by soldiers raiding houses.

I mean, what happened to them was horrible.

And you wouldn't want to trade No.

the male population— But the Rwandan women stood— They stood u and owned their power, though, to set that nation back on course.

That's the story there.

And that is wha the Icelandic women have done.

That's what the North Ireland women did, very similar situation to Rwanda.

So all I'm saying, we as women, each one of us have power.

We have collective power to stand up and say enough is enough.

And I would love to see tha in the next generation of women coming up, or my generation.

And what do men have to do to make this a friendlier country for women to want to stay in?

Simply be supportive.

And I have to say, too, the media, and again, programing can also be more supportive, encouraging women, in ways that they aren't now.

We're out of time.

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