'Mancession' brings new majority to the workforce: women

"Rest assured that admissions officers are not cavalier in making their decisions," wrote Britz.

The growing gender gap in college enrollment has led many to speculate what is to come next in the workforce.

"Women will go into jobs that require a college education and fewer men will be able to," said Goldin. "But there is a lot of retooling and retraining that goes on. Males mature later and many will realize at age 40 that they need better tools."

American women are now the breadwinners or co-breadwinners in two-thirds of American households. In a survey conducted by The New York Times, when jobs are scarce, 85 percent of people polled in the U.S. believe that men should not get priority for jobs.

"Part of my Christian upbringing in a predominantly Christian nation is that God is the head of man and man is the head of the household," said Mustafaa El-Scari, a program specialist for the Administration for Children and Families. "There are very few men in the nation that can ask their wives to stay at home because they don't have the financial resources to do so."

"The lines have been blurred over jobs that are supposed to be for men and supposed to be for women," said El-Scari who heads support groups for men that are late or delinquent on child support payments. Since 2008, El-Scari said his support groups for men have seen a dramatic increase in enrollment.

The recession has made stay-at-home dads a reality, said Arreola. "Hopefully in the future, men will know they have the choice to stay at home or work. With the increase of women in the workforce, they will also know that they have that option.