It’s no longer a man’s world at Chapman University, but has it ever been?

Graphic by Easton Clark, Photo Editor

When asked about Chapman University’s gender breakdown, the majority of students guessed somewhere around a 40-60 ratio between male and female students. 

As of 2025, Chapman’s undergraduate population is 61.5% female, 38.3% male, and 0.1% non-binary. 

So where are the men? 

According to the National Center for Education Statistics, there is a noticeable trend of universities struggling with male enrollment over the last four years, and Chapman is one of them. 

According to Chapman’s student enrollment data, male undergraduate enrollment at Chapman has been slowly decreasing since 2022. 

In 2022, Chapman had 3,151 male undergraduates compared to 4,713 female undergraduates. 

Comparing that data to the fall of 2025, Chapman currently has 2,926 male undergraduate students and 4,696 female undergraduate students. 

The undergraduate male population has dropped by almost 2% over the past three years. While the male undergraduate population has decreased, the overall Chapman population has remained consistent at 78%. 

However, among graduate students at Chapman, the male population is on the rise, particularly in master's and doctoral programs. The exception is those studying to become a doctor of pharmacy, which consistently has the lowest male population at Chapman at 29.5%. 

“There definitely are a lot more women, but I’m not sure if that is because there actually are a lot more women attending Chapman or if women just tend to be out and about,” said Abigail Stipe, a senior health sciences major.

In major-based classes, students say the gender gap is most clearly seen. 

“For creative writing classes, I would say that in general there’s a 25-75 split between male and female,” said Tim Deutschman, a junior creative writing major.

Deutschman said he is not deterred by the gender gap because, no matter the field he goes in, there should be equal opportunity for all genders. 

“If I were to be successful, I would want to use that success to promote voices different from my own to help these industries move away from being male-dominated,” said Deutschman. 

Senior computer science major Tatiana Gasparre has a different classroom experience.

“I’d say, not including me, there are on average three girls in the (computer science) class,” said Gasparre. “And they are the same ones all the time.” 

Gasparre also said that while most of the computer science and engineering classes are male-dominated, she has seen a rise in female students in the game design minor. 

“The Game Development Programming Minor has a higher percentage of women than our other majors or minors at Fowler,” said Jon Humphreys, Instructor at Fowler School of Engineering.

The Game Development Minor at Chapman explores not only the programming side of video games but also the other areas, such as narrative, animation and production, that go into making them.

“[Fowler] has taken steps to reduce the [gender] gap; we now have more women professors than men, we platform our many successful women students and graduates,” said Humphreys. “But the inequity remains.”