Fun with numbers...

Instapundit is looking at this article on the decrease in men in college.

It's an interesting subject, and it is interesting that the number of men in college has dropped. My own alma matter is 59% female according to the Princeton Review, which is interesting since it was all-male until 1971 when it merged (ok, took over) an all-girls college, Mount Saint Agnes.

But I do take issue with one of the stats used to demonstrate this:

There are almost as many men in jail, on probation, and on parole (5,000,000) as there are men in college (7,300,000)

This has been discussed before when the Justice Institute claimed that more Black men were in jail then in college. It's also pretty sketchy a stat. It may be true, but it's misleading, since 1)many people are in jail longer than they are in college - few people are in college for more than 5 years, but some people are in jail for life and 2)most people go to college between 18 and 24, while people go to jail at all ages - so you have a larger pool of people to look at.

It's one of those stats that's interesting , like how many football fields you can fill up with trash, but it's not something to base policy on.