Given the entire climate at college, and the cost, the benefits aren’t there any longer.

Men saying “no thanks” to college

John Maxwell is curious about the world and freely shares, in casual conversation, tidbits of English history. Yet he says he’ll never again set foot in a college classroom. “I consider myself mostly self-taught and I just believe I should cut my own path in life,” said the 24-year-old Maxwell, who dropped out of Littleton’s Araphoe Community College after one semester.

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Maxwell is among a generation of young men who increasingly are turning their backs on colleges, universities and the associated degrees — either dropping out of upper-level learning or never considering it a viable option.

Some of the young men shunning campus say they don’t want to take on massive student-loan debt.

“If you don’t want to go to college you can go to a trade school and come away with something and not be on the hook for $150,000,” said 28-year-old Adam Stark, who dropped out of college and now is thriving in the music business in Denver.

Others say the campus environment has become testy, even hostile, toward men. “You definitely get the sense you are the problem,” said Maxwell. “One woman once told me that she could use statistics to determine how many of my friends were rapists.”

Whatever the reason, enrollment data show men are becoming less of a presence on college campuses both in Colorado and across the United States.