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Student Debt by Skin Color

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Posted on Oct 29, 2011
colorlines.com

You may know that American student debt—which is swelling at a rate of almost $3,000 a second—is expected to hit $1 trillion by the end of the year. But do you know how the tab breaks down by ethnicity? Who owes the most? Who owes the least? Is anyone escaping its debilitating grip?

By ethnic measures, the answer to that last question is no. According to the folks at Color Lines, a large number of black and Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander students register in the top bracket of borrowers, owing $38,000 or more. Blacks and Native Americans lead the next level, owing between roughly $21,000 and $38,000. Asians and whites top out the $12,300 to $21,400 bracket, and a large number of Asians and Latinos owe $13,000 or less.

White students are spread evenly throughout, with roughly a quarter of falling into each of the four categories. Asians have a relatively marginal presence in the group of top debtors, with only 32 percent owing more than $21,400. Altogether, blacks and Native Americans, Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders owe the most.

No explanation of the data is offered. It would be useful to know, for example, what social trends have kept the debts of certain groups low. Why do over 60 percent of black students owe $21,000 or more, while almost the same percentage of Asians escape that level of indebtedness? Only the sociologists can tell us.

See the full graphic here. —Alexander Reed Kelly

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prisnersdilema's avatar

By prisnersdilema, October 30, 2011 at 2:54 pm Link to this comment

Young people, no matter what their color, go to college to make their lives better.  Not to
ruin themselves. 

That’s the point of getting a student loan to make life better…

But that was not the intent of those who lent the money….and John Bohener is their tool
getting more than any other congressman from the student loan industry…

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By Deb, October 29, 2011 at 4:10 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

You don’t really need a sociologist, it’s probably because they had less money to start with, ergo they had to borrow more.  Also, I would be deliriously happy to only owe $38K. They got me coming and going and now that I’m disabled I will never be able to pay back my loan.  For anything other than entertainment and the ability to interpret doctor speak, I have a useless degree.  Absolutely useless.  And the only way out of it, is to go back to school, which I can afford even less than I could 15 years ago.  What a racket.

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A Progressive Journal of News and Opinion. Editor, Robert Scheer. Publisher, Zuade Kaufman.
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