Key Findings
Research by Fenaba R. Addo, an Institute for Economic Equity research fellow, and Xing Zhang sheds new light on student loan debt across gender and racial dimensions. An increasing share of college-going adults must take out student loans. While necessary to cover their education and associated costs, this debt is not distributed equally. Young Black women are the most likely to have student debt, and their average loan balance is the highest at $11,000. Women are more likely than men to hold debt, and men’s higher incomes allow them to pay down their debt faster than women. Black men and Black women both start out with more student debt than their white counterparts, and because of their lower earnings, they pay it down more slowly. Gender and racial disparities in student debt thus grow over time.
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