A Non-Mathematician Reads the Newspaper

Some article in Newsweek on how boys are being shortchanged by our nation's schools. I came across this gem midway through the second paragraph and stopped reading:

The number of boys who said they didn't like school rose 71 percent between 1980 and 2001, according to a University of Michigan study. Nowhere is the shift more evident than on college campuses. Thirty years ago men represented 58 percent of the undergraduate student body. Now they're a minority at 44 percent. This widening achievement gap, says Margaret Spellings, U.S. secretary of Education, "has profound implications for the economy, society, families and democracy."

Erm, what percentage of girls was going to college thirty years ago? Does this mean so much that fewer boys are going or that a much higher percentage of girls opts for college? I.e., that the women's movement worked ITO encouraging girls to get themselves educations?