I don’t support affirmative action of any variety. Why should balance be a desired end in itself?
Men are more likely to go into the trades, and we need people to do that. The average age of people in the trades is very high. Who are you going to call when they retire?
Let the market sort it out, distorting markets often produces a worse outcome.
Dating, for one thing. When my daughters apply to college, I imagine they won't want to go to a school that's 65/35, since that would create a very skewed dating dynamic (to the benefit of boys and the detriment of girls).
Obviously one is not restricted to dating inside the same college. Typically the dating environment is the entire community. It can be a good place to meet people of the same age though. Young women tend (at peak physical beauty) to have an edge in the dating market over young men (at lowest status), so it’s not even guaranteed that it would make things worse.
There is nothing forbidding dating outside the same college in most cases, but it can be very impractical. At my school for example, Caltech, the work load was very high leaving limited time for social activities, only a small fraction of students had cars, public transit was not very good, and there weren't many places within walking distance of campus you'd be likely to meet potential dates.
At the time (~1980) among undergraduates Caltech was about 15% female, 85% male. There were probably some who did make off campus dating work but I never heard about it.
Even if a significant fraction could make off campus dating work, with that much of an on campus imbalance the ratio of the remaining males looking for an on campus date to on campus females would still likely be large and that's pretty annoying for everyone, but especially so for the women who if they were not currently dating were being constantly hit on.
It's not a matter of valuing dating above all else. It's a matter of realizing that your students are going to live at your school for 4 years and have limited opportunities to socialize off campus, and that if campus can not provide a somewhat normal social life academic performance will suffer.
This is more true at some schools than others. Many schools are pretty insular and dating outside of the school is quite uncommon. This was true for the liberal arts college where I went to school, even though it was not geographically isolated. It is definitely true for isolated schools (Williams).
You want to limit access to education because of dating? In the 21st century where you can meet people from thousands of miles away within minutes?
I heavily doubt this is a justified incentive to prescribe quotas. If university was for dating, I probably wouldn't have picked computer science and electrical engineering.
Even if it may feel different some times, universities aren't a breeding ground where dads can put their daughters to get engaged.
I didn't say I want to limit access to education because of dating. I said that it's one possible consideration.
> If university was for dating, I probably wouldn't have picked computer science and electrical engineering.
I also never suggested people choose a major in order to date (that would seem extreme — though I definitely knew people who signed up for specific classes for this purpose!).
And I also didn't suggest that I would send my daughters to university to get engaged — that's a straw man. Instead, I pointed out that my daughters themselves probably wouldn't want to go to a school where the dating prospects are dismal. My guess is that most people would feel the same way!
Most importantly, I was not in any way indicating that this should be required (which would "limit access to education," as you refer to it). I'm just pointing out that schools could have rational reasons for not admitting students on a sex-blind basis, and that perhaps it shouldn't be knee-jerkingly rejected.
> In the 21st century where you can meet people from thousands of miles away within minutes?
This is not how college students want to date, FYI. I say this as someone who has been in multiple long-distance relationships, and eventually a long-distance marriage (but met these girlfriends locally, like most people do).
Men are more likely to go into the trades, and we need people to do that. The average age of people in the trades is very high. Who are you going to call when they retire?
Let the market sort it out, distorting markets often produces a worse outcome.