Student loan debt. It weighs heavily upon hundreds of thousands of
Americans. It also is the leading reason African Americans drop out of
college. Yet, surprisingly, a new study shows that indebted Black
students actually are carrying a lighter debt load than their White and
Asian peers. And they tend to come from households that have comparably
higher incomes.
According to Life After Debt: Results of the National Student Loan
Survey, recently released by Nellie Mae — the nation’s largest
nonprofit provider of student loans — 69 percent of African Americans
who drop out of college do so because of high student loan debt. That
compares with 43 percent of Whites who offered the same reason for
dropping out. Additionally, 59 percent of African American student loan
borrowers feel “extremely” or “very” burdened by their student loan
payments.
“Our survey confirmed what many have suspected: While student loans
have helped millions of students gain access to a postsecondary
education, higher debt incurred from borrowing to cover the increasing
cost of college is becoming more of a burden for some students,” said
Lawrence O’Toole, president and CEO of Nellie Mae.
“In an era when our higher education institutions are striving to
diversify their student bodies and better reflect the makeup of our
population in general, large segments are falling through the cracks
…. That 69 percent of African American students who drop out of
college cite high student loan debt as the reason is a statistic we
need to pay attention to,” he warns.
Yet, the Nellie Mae study shows that African Americans generally
have a lower average, debt level than Whites and Asians. The average
1997 debt level for African Americans was $16,800, compared with
$18,900 for Whites, and $20,900 for Asian borrowers. The debt level for
Hispanic borrowers was $15,800.
The average debt level for all groups was $18,600. In 1991, the average debt level for all borrowers was $8,200.
The study cites the average income level of African American
borrowers — $27,500 — as the highest of the four groups. For Whites,
the average income was $27,400; for Hispanics, $24,200; and for Asians,
$24,000.
