[gojomo]

Whether gender-specific scholarships are legal is a question for lawyers and courts.

But regarding "equalizing the gender ratio", the gender balance for college undergraduates in the USA swung far in favor of women 10 or more years ago. Today, most colleges that want to 'equalize the gender ratio' would have to offer male-only scholarships.

[Jach]

You're aggregating up over all the possible degrees at all US colleges, in which case you're right, but come on. You know that in departments like computer science and pure math and various engineering disciplines and even physics the gender ratio is still heavily in favor of men. That's what's being addressed by scholarships. At many US colleges the female-only scholarships are typically conditional on entering one of the degrees with a predominantly male population and completing it.

[gojomo]

So would male-only scholarships be appropriate in all the other female-dominated majors? And, because of the overall undergraduate imbalance, offering more male-only scholarships than female-only scholarships when netted over all fields? Simply to achieve gender balance, of course.

[Jach]

Sure, if achieving gender balance is desired. Racial balance also seems to be desired by most places, leading to implicit and explicit benefits for different races as well as genders. Just don't expect to see too many male-only scholarships. Few people seem to be concerned over the gender imbalance in, say for rhetorical purposes, English literature. Why do we want a greater balance in CS but not Eng. Lit? Regardless of why, the fact remains that we do, and thus we'll see tricks like scholarships trying to effect that change. Perhaps it would be better if it was all based on intellectual merit, but if you argue for that earnestly you'll be called any of a sexist/racist/elitist or something else. If that's really the path forward it will be a long time before we get on it.