College gender gap - a Problem

I think more males than females (cannot cite a study but I'll bet there is one) go into highly paid building trades careers --plumbers. electricians, HVAC, welders, carpenters, etc. They end up with more enjoyable and better-compensated careers than some males who opt for college,

Kind of an outdated paradigm. .  Back in the day. you basically did not get work out of the old fashioned union hall unless you knew someone.  And you are very correct these are still very male dominated fields.  I can't speak for other parts of the country, but  around here fewer kids are getting into the traditional trades at the vocational school than in my generation.   Supply and demand has kicked in and kids with zero connections are getting good jobs in things like electrical, plumbing, and HVAC right out of trade school

That's a good point. If you attend a vocational technical HS, you don't need family connections to get into a trade. Your diploma is your ticket.

Male percentage of the undergraduate population at five schools in DC
American 37%
Georgetown 44%
George Washington 38%
Howard 29%
Catholic Univ 45%
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Decided to look at two universities in Metro DC area
University of Maryland, College Park 52%
George Mason 50%

Wondered whether the nearly equal M:F ratio also existed at prestigious public universities in Virginia. (There are no prestigious public university counterparts in MD to UMd @ College Park)
William & Mary 42%
University of Virginia 45%

Such would be trying to swim against the tide.

Tables with levels of attainment by gender by European country can be found here.
ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Educational_attainment_statistics#Level_of_educational_attainment_by_sex

The phenomenon, and it is a post WWII phenomenon, appears to be that as females become more educated, the female children of educated females become more educated compared to male offspring.
  

As usual, phreek has honed in on the nugget of truth. Is it a problem? For many, many years, the ratio has been skewed in exactly the opposite direction. IMO, this is only a problem if you do not believe in equal opportunity for women.

Well, KY, you have stumbled upon an interesting topic! I offer this in my defense:

grammarist.com/eggcorns/home-in-hone-in/

Home in means to direct on a target. The phrasal verb derives from the 19th-century use of homing pigeons, but it resurged in the 20th century to refer to missiles that home in on their targets. It’s also commonly used metaphorically, where to home in on something is to focus on and make progress toward it.

Hone in began as an alteration of home in, and many people regard it as an error. It is a very common, though, especially in the U.S. and Canada—so common that many dictionaries now list it—and there are arguments in its favor. Hone means to sharpen or to perfect, and we can think of homing in as a sharpening of focus or a perfecting of one’s trajectory toward a target. So while it might not make strict logical sense, extending hone this way is not a huge leap.

Outside North America, home in prevails by a huge margin. It also prevails in North America, but only by a ratio of about two to one. Hone in is common even in technical, scientific, and military contexts, where one might expect home in to prevail. A few American and Canadian publishers clearly favor home in as a matter of policy, but most apparently have no strictly enforced policy one way or the other.