Women at the University of Kansas might be pleased to know they have a mental edge over their male counterparts.

The grade point average for University women for Fall 2004 was a 3.04, compared to a 2.81 for University men, according to the Office of Institutional Research and Planning.

Some, such as Ann Cudd, director of women’s studies, said reasons for the difference could include women’s commitment to academics, the attendance of more women than men at University programs or the sorority population at the University.

A wage gap between men and women still exists, and women must perform better than men in school to get a fair shot in the work world, Cudd said. Women earn about 72 percent of what men earn, as opposed to 30 years ago when women earned 59 percent of what men earned.

“I think it’s clear we’ve come a long ways, but we still have a long ways to go,” Cudd said.

This includes more men working as nurses or women working as engineers, helping to integrate the work force, Cudd said.

Cudd said she noticed that men tend to underperform in school as opposed to standardized testing. She said that women were the opposite and overperformed in school compared to standardized testing.

“My opinion is that scholarships are based too often on standardized test scores,” she said.

Women’s success in school could be a result of their attendance at leadership programs at the University, said Rueben Perez, assistant dean of students and student involvement and leadership director.

Women outnumbered men almost every fall at the student leadership institute, which helped students develop skills in leadership, communication and organization, Perez said.

The institute attracted 100 applicants. Student involvement and leadership did not count males versus females, but Perez said it was obvious that more women than men attended.

The presence of more sorority women than fraternity men contributed to high expectations of women to excel in school, said Debra Patterson, Garnett freshman.

“A lot of my friends thought about rushing because it would help them do better in classes,” she said. “That’s probably not the whole reason, but I think being in something structured would help them do better.”

In the fall, there were 352 more sorority women than fraternity men. Last fall, there were 505 more sorority women than fraternity men, according to the scholarship report.

Even though they are outnumbered, fraternity men address academics as well. Beta Theta Pi fraternity, 1425 Tennessee St., is study-oriented, said Stephen Bryant, Wichita junior.

“We respect the study space 24/7,” he said. “If there’s ever a disturbance, you just say ‘study hall’ and they take their business somewhere else.”

This type of attitude earned the men of Beta Theta Pi a 3.43 average GPA in the fall, higher than all greek chapters at the University.

Bryant was still aware of the average GPA among women at the University. He said he noticed many women at the University were education majors and thorough in their studies.

Although these factors could be possible reasons why females have higher GPAs, some think the statistic has little meaning.

“It doesn’t seem to be an important difference,” said David Dewar, assistant director of the humanities and western civilization program. “It’s essentially a ‘B’ for both of them.”