It’s no secret that large student loan debt is a problem for many people. Americans collectively owe more in student loans than the gross domestic product (GDP) of all but 14 countries, and that amount is only growing bigger over time.

Taking out debt is a solid way to🍸 finance higher education and can even help a recent graduate establish a healthy credit profile; however, the most economically vulnerable are often at risk of being unable to keep up with their payments.

When we analyze student loan debt further by gender, it quickly becomes apparent that the majority of this finaꦏ🍰ncial burden isn’t being shouldered by men.

Understanding Student Loan Debt

澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:Student loan debt is what’s owed to a lender that provides funding for higher education. This money is often primarily used to pay tuition but also can be used for school supplies, basic necessities, and anything else that a borrower purchases during their academic career. Most students are unable to pay for college without financial aid, even if they receive funding from parents and/or scholarships, due to how the price of higher education has escalated over time.

While it’s possible to find a well-paid job after graduation, many aren’t so lucky—or don’t work in fields with high salaries—which will limit their ability to pay down their debt. This can lead to a loan becoming delinquent due to late payments, a situation that can lead to the loan defaulting. As a result, many struggling graduates can take a major hit to their 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:credit score and/or 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:credit report not long after completing their education.

In addition to affecting almost 43 million Americans and totaling just over $1.6 trillion as of Q2 2024, student loan debt is also the third-highest source of household debt, after mortgage and auto debt. College attendance is high, but the cost of a 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:college education more than doubled compared to the prior generation.

Meanwhile, household incomes have remained relatively static. This difficult reality falls especially hard on women. This group faces numerous additional challenges that result in both higher loan balances and a lower ability to pay down their debt.

What causes these gender discrepancies? Our research throws light on some of the issues that disadvantage women and looks at what we could find on issues faced by nonbinary/gender-nonconforming borrowers as well as ♒differences between cisgender and transgender borrowers.

Note that the names of certain groups used below may not be entirely consistent throughout the article to match the terminology used by our sources🔯.

For instance, although Investopedia prefers the identifier “Latino/Latina,” this article uses terms🔜 such as “Hispanic” that represent how particular researchers reported information. Also, note that most of these studies are not done annually, so we will be reporting data from different years.

Student Debt by Gender Breakdown

For starters, it’s important to know that the majority of undergraduate college students today are women: approximately 58% for the 2022–2023 school year. So it’s not surprising that women held nearly 67% of all U.S. student loan debt, about $929 billion.

As such, women’s debt burden isn’t equal. According to the American Association of University Women (AAUW), women graduate owing $3,120 more on average than their male counterparts—an average of $22,000 in student debt, compared to $18,880 for men.

They not only owe more but also face a 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:gendered wage gap from the beginning: Women graduating with a bachelor’s degree are expected to earn $35,338 on average, which equates to approximately 81% of what men anticipated earning. As a result, even if women had the same amount of debt as their male counterparts, the lack of 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:equal pay would still make it more difficult to rid themselves of their financial burdens.

In fact, female borrowers typically require more education to earn a wage equal to less-educated men. To exceed the lifetime earnings of a male graduate with just an associate degree, a woman may need to earn at least a master’s degree. Those who receive a graduate education to counteract pay gaps will ultimately take on even more debt and pay more in the long run. Female students borrowed $51,035 on average for graduate school, which can increase to an average of $61,626 a year after graduation, thanks to interest.

Even if women had the same amount of debt as their male counterparts, the lack of equal pay still would make it more difficult to pay off these loans. When we remember that women on average owe more on student loans than men, it’s easy to see how the wage and debt gaps reinforce one another.

This frequently forces female borrowers to delay saving for retirement, purchasing a house, and/or starting their own business. Adding to this is the fact that women are also the most likely to experience general financial difficulties, with 34% reporting an inability to afford basic necessities in 2019.

The Intersection of Gender and Race

The 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:student loan debt burden isn’t shared equally across all women borrowers. At $37,558, Black women had the highest average student loan debt, followed by White women at $31,346. Both Black and White women owed more student loan debt than their male counterparts.

Conversely, Latino/Latina women owed slightly less ($423) than men in this same group. Similarly, Asian women not only had the lowest debt amount of all female borrowers but also owed slightly less than Asian men.

That unequal start doesn’t get any better at one year out of college, the AAUW reports. At $41,466.05 on average, Black women owed the 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:largest amount of debt, followed by White, Latino/Latina, and Asian borrowers. Although there was an increase across all categories in 2017, one group experienced their debt rising faster than others: Black women.

There was a roughly $2,000 increase to the student loan debt balances of White, Latino/Latina, and Asian women, whereas there was a nearly $4,000 increase for Black borrowers. This data set also shows that female Pacific Islander/Hawaiian Native and American Indian or Alaska Native borrowers (at $38,747.44 and $36,184.40, respectively) owed more than White borrowers.

Larger student debt levels and the racial wealth gap—as well as 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:unequal access to and outcomes within higher education—are other socioeconomic factors that reinforce each other and negatively impact women of color.

In 2021, the U.S. Government Accountability Office reported that African American women and Latinas were paid $0.63 and $0.58, respectively, for every $1 earned by White men.

How College Type Affects Debt

The type of college attended also affects debt. The AAUW found that women attending public four-year institutions on average had $29,611 in student loan debt in 2017. Following this were debt loads from private nonprofit four-year and for-profit four-year universities, at an average of $32,086 and $42,778, respectively.

Although all of these amounts are high, the difference between the costs of public four-year institutions and for-profit four-year ones is stark. They may not enroll as many students as public universities, but for-profit institutions disproportionately enroll women, particularly Black women and/or single mothers. The existence of student lending enables these universities to find people who can borrow enough to pay a higher price for their degrees.

The Mom Factor

Although childcare won’t be a concern for every student, it’s a major economic factor for millions of women. According to the Center for Responsible Lending, approximately 25% of all college students in 2018 were parents with dependent children; more than 40% of parents were single mothers.

Students who are also mothers face additional barriers to repaying debt, reports the AAUW. One year after graduation, women in 2017 could expect to spend $920 on housing (plus $163 for utilities), $396 on vehicle payments, $387 on food, and $113 on medical expenses. The 16% of women who are mothers had an additional $520 for childcare each month on average.

Adding in a $307 monthly student loan payment can make it difficult, if not impossible, to cover all these basic necessities and pay down debt, much less save any money. Even those who can afford to repay on time may still experience their loan balances increasing over time. This happens when loan interest is accruing and capitalizing on their loans, outpacing any minimum payments. For example, if a student takes advantage of the six-month grace period after graduation before starting repayment, that unpaid interest is added to their loan.

The scarcity of on-campus 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:childcare, which met just 5% of demand in 2018, makes things especially difficult for parents still attending school.

Since they are also one of the groups often targeted by for-profit universities—putting them in the highest debt group—single mothers are more likely to drop out of college due to all of these elements. This, of course, leaves them with burdensome student loan debt and nothing to show for it.

Differences in Repayment

According to the AAUW, women tended to 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:repay thei🧜r loans at a slower rate than men in 2020, due in part to the wage gap between the two groups. College-educated, full-time female workers generally made 26% less than their male counterparts. This gap has been shown to increase over time—starting at 18% one year following graduation and rising to 20% four years later.

As previously discussed, having a lower wage means having less available income to pay down debt. From one to four years following graduation, women had paid off 31% of their outstanding debt, compared to the 38% that men paid off.

Black and Hispanic women were significantly further behind during this same time period, at 12% and 18%, respectively. Additionally, the AAUW found that 57% of Black female borrowers in 2008–2012 faced financial difficulties while paying down their debt, compared to 42%, 30%, and 28% for Hispanic, White, and Asian women, respectively.

The discrepancies in student loan repayment can also be seen in 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:default rates. From 2008 to 2012, the AAUW found that, among bachelor’s degree graduates, these rates were slightly higher for women than men and much higher for Black and Hispanic women than for their White and Asian counterparts. These results were similar when accounting for students enrolled in an additional degree program.

Each kind of university also produces different default rates. For-profit institutions enrolled a significantly larger number of borrowers who defaulted within two years after graduation. For-profit universities also disproportionately enroll women, which further raises women’s risk of default.

Beyond the Binary

There is very little student debt information about borrowers who identify outside of the gender binary, often because they are consolidated within broader LGBTQ+ debt statistics.

However, the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law reports that 51% of transgender adults took out federal student loans to finance their education in 2021, compared to 35.9% and 27.9% of LBQ cisgender women and GBQ cisgender male borrowers, respectively.

Looking deeper, federal student loans don’t require credit checks, but 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:private student loans generally do. Transgender people have a greater risk of experiencing credit rejection, given that 18 U.S. states and territories lack laws prohibiting discrimination in lending based on gender identity.

A 2017 survey conducted by the Center for the Study of Student Life at The Ohio State University found that the 244 participants who identified as either transgender men or gender-nonconforming borrowers were more likely to take out a loan to pay for college (8.2%), somewhat more likely to have student loan debt (3.9%), and slightly more likely to rely on financial assistance from family members to pay for college expenses (2.2%) than their cisgender counterparts.

Transgender men or gender-nonconforming borrowers also were slightly more likely to fund their education via federal loans (3.7%), scholarships (2.1%), and parent income (0.8%) than cisgender students.

The National Transgender Discrimination Survey—which surveyed nearly 6,500 transgender respondents attending undergraduate, graduate, professional, or technical school—found that, in addition to a lack of financial aid, participants experienced several other barriers in higher education in 2017, such as harassment and financial issues related to transition. These challenges can lead to students dropping out, which, as we’ve previously established, would leave those who did receive financial aid with a large debt balance and no degree to help pay it off.

Adding to these financial challenges is the fact that—despite the data from the Center for the Study of Student Life reported above—parents may rescind promises to finance the higher education of their transgender and/or nonbinary children, should they even offer to do so in the first place. Further compounding these difficult cir💧cumstances are numerous other inequalities, such as employment disc𝓰rimination and a pay gap.

Student Loan Forgiveness

Debt forgiveness may be possible, and 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:it may be the key💦 to restoring economic mobility and financial security to those most burdened by high student debt balances. But debt forgiveness isn't without its detractors. When the Biden-Harris administration released its plan to forgive $10,000 per borrower making under $125,000, with $20,000 for Pell Grant recipients, they were met with legal opposition and eventually overturned.

澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:Forgiving student loans is a controversial idea for some. What’s more, loan forgiveness would only be a stopgap measure without fixing the underlying lending system. At the very least, steps should be taken to eliminate the gendered wage gaps and other discriminatory factors that worsen the unequal student debt burden that women and 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:people of color face each day.

After the Supreme Court blocked the Biden Administration's loan forgiveness plan, the Department of Education announced a new set of plans to reduce student debt. Under the Saving for a Valuable Education (SAVE) plan, borrowers have to pay a smaller percentage of their discretionary income, and the amount of income considered non-discretionary is increased to 225% of the federal poverty line. This means that many borrowers will have reduced payments, even as low as 0$.

The Bottom Line

The negative effects of student debt are not just financial. A 2020 report found a positive association between a person’s debt balance and the amount of stress that they feel regarding it. The authors also reported that this anxiety correlates with poor health and symptoms of depression among students, particularly Black women.