Women more likely to opt for higher education, according to UCAS figures.

A third more young women than men are now seeking higher education – a trend which some academic experts have called ‘unhealthy’.

Latest application figures reveal 87,000 more women than men applied for courses starting at UK universities this year, increasing last year’s gender gap by a further 7,000.

Indeed young men are fast becoming a ‘disadvantaged’ group, accordingto the head of the Universities and Colleges Admission Service (UCAS).

“There remains a stubborn gap between male and female applicants which, on current trends, could eclipse the gap between rich and poor within a decade,” said Dr Mary Curnock Cook, chief executive of UCAS.

“Young men are becoming a disadvantaged group in terms of going to university and this underperformance needs urgent focus across the education sector,” Cook continued.

One academic, Professor Alan Smithers, from the Centre for Education and Employment at Buckingham University, has an interesting solution to the problem, saying: “The solution put forward by some universities to combat disadvantage was to offer pupils from state schools positions on lower grades than independent schools.

“Perhaps universities should now admit men on lower grades – although I suppose at the moment that could be illegal.

“One thing is becoming clear – the advantage conferred by independent schools is now less than the advantage obtained by being a female.”

An advantage purely for begin female? This must be a first.

Perhaps the patriarchy is finally backfiring on itself; the gender values placed on boys and girls at a very young age mean that boys are more likely to make choices that reaffirm their masculinity, and unfortunately that does not usually include opting for a nursing degree.

The gender gap in education takes root long before our teenagers are filling out their UCAS application forms; last year almost 25 per cent of GCSE exams sat by girls were graded A* or A, but less than 18 per cent of boys achieved the same results.

Even before secondary school we see girls and boys being encouraged to take up gender-stereotyped play and pastimes – chemistry sets for boys, nurses uniforms for girls.

It’s no wonder that when they get to secondary school they may feel their choices are limited to what they are expected to do as a boy or a girl.

And at university this is no different.

One reason cited for the decline in male applications and the increase in female is the careers they are opting for; women are much more likely to take up nursing and teaching, which are now taught in universities, and men are more attracted to vocational careers and ‘trades’.

That may sound like a sexist assumption, but unfortunately the statistics back this up.

Just take a look at thesefigures illustrating the gender divide in apprenticeships: only 3 per cent of engineering apprentices are women, compared to 90 per cent of teaching assistants.

We need to start before our kids even get to school if we want to help them break the gender stereotyping that is shaping their career options.

Nor should the recent figures from UCAS distract us from the fact that there is still a big class divide in access to higher education; in fact, the gender gap is even wider in the most disadvantaged communities.

Conor Ryan, director of research and communication at the Sutton Trust charity, said there is still a 2.5-fold gap between applicants from poor and better off backgrounds.

He also said: “[The UCAS] report shows that the gap between boys’ and girls’ applications from disadvantaged areas has widened with young women from the most disadvantaged communities much more likely to apply to university than young men.”

Another reason why everyone except white, middle-class men stands to gain from feminism.