<P> Additionally, in the years following Title IX, American high schools and colleges have been steadily embracing girls' and women's soccer . According to the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS), the U.S. had little more than 10,000 girls playing high school soccer in the late 1970s . This number had increased to 120,000 by 1991, when the USWNT claimed its first World Cup title, and 250,000 by 1999, the year of the second World Cup title . In 2015, there were about 375,000 girls playing high school soccer, making up 47% of all high school soccer players, and soccer has recently surpassed softball as the third-most - played girls' team sport . At the college level, 53% of all NCAA soccer players are women, and this percentage rises to 61% at the highest level, Division I . </P> <P> Another contributing factor is the role of women within American society, which includes relative equality (especially rejecting hardened gender roles) for women in the United States relative to many other countries . This is also reflected in official government policy regarding women in athletics, specifically the landmark Title IX legislation, which broadly requires any educational institution that receives federal government funds to support men's and women's educational programs equally, thus including athletics . America's approach to growing the game among women has served as a model for other countries' development programs for women at all levels . </P> <P> However, the FiveThirtyEight story suggested that the U.S. does not take adult women's soccer as seriously as some other countries, notably Germany . On a per capita basis, the U.S. and Germany have essentially identical participation among girls . However, the two countries differ greatly in the age profile of their registered female players . Nearly 95% of registered female players in the U.S. are youths, as opposed to 31% in Germany . In turn, this leads to Germany having more than six times the number of serious adult female players as the U.S. (about 650,000 to 100,000). </P> <P> In the United States, college soccer is featured in many collegiate athletic associations including the NCAA, the NAIA, the NCCAA, and the USCAA . Many top American college soccer players play for separate teams in the Premier Development League (PDL) during the summer . </P>

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