"In the United States, Women owe the majority of the outstanding $1.7 trillion dollars in student loans. As of 2020, women held almost $929 billion in outstanding student debt.
And according to a new report from The American Association of University Women, Black women carry about 20% more student debt than white women do. Researches estimate that one year after graduation, white women owe $33,851 in undergraduate loans, on average, while Black women owe an average of $41,466.
'While there are more Black women enrolled in higher education than ever before, it's deeply concerning that Black women hold so much more student debt than their white counterpart... Sadly, though, it's unsurprising: It's a stark reflection of the wide racial wealth gap in our country that leaves Black families with less money to contribute to higher education'
Laura Hamilton, professor of sociology at University of California, Merced and co-author of a recent report on student debt cancellation for the Roosevelt Institute says that the discrepancy does not surprise her either.
'Black women are much more likely to attend college than Black men and they are subject to significant racial wealth gap disparities, which means that they need to pull out more money to attend college,' she says. 'So this is not surprising at all."
Read more on how Black women owe more in student debt than white women in the CNBC article here.
