Black College Grads More Likely to Graduate With Debt; Black graduates have lower levels of well-being than other college graduates.
Byline: Andrew Dugan & Scott Vanderbilt
Synopsis: Half of 2000-2014 black college graduates in the U.S. report graduating with more than $25,000 in student loan debt. Black college grads show lower levels of well-being in several areas compared with other college graduates.
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Half of 2000-2014 black college graduates in the U.S. report graduating with more than $25,000 in undergraduate student loan debt. By comparison, 34% of recent white graduates report similar levels of debt, revealing a large borrowing gap between the races.
In total, just over a fifth of recent black college graduates (22%) report leaving school with no debt, about half the rate among white college graduates (39%). About three in 10 recent black college graduates (28%) and the same percentage of whites say they borrowed up to $25,000. Overall, 35% of 2000-2014 U.S. college graduates report graduating with more than $25,000 in student debt, in inflation-adjusted dollars.
These results are based on the inaugural Gallup-Purdue Index, a joint research effort with Purdue University and Lumina Foundation to study the relationship between the college experience and college graduates' lives. The Gallup-Purdue Index is a comprehensive, nationally representative study of U.S. college graduates with Internet access, conducted Feb. 4-March 7, 2014. According to a 2013 Census Bureau report, 90% of college graduates in the U.S. have access to the Internet.
The student loan debt figures on which this analysis is based are reported by those responding to the survey and are adjusted for inflation to today's dollars. Figures only apply to undergraduate student loan debt. Gallup did not ask respondents about the current status of their student debt or how much of their loan they had repaid at the time of the interview.
Racial Borrowing Gap for Recent Grads Nearly as Wide as in Past
Mirroring the overall population of college graduates, black college graduates have increasingly relied on at least some student loans to finance their education. Less than half (48%) of blacks who graduated from college in the 1970s say they took on student loan debt to obtain their undergraduate degree, but this grew to 63% for graduates in the 1980s, 67% in the 1990s, and 78% for the 2000-2014 cohort.
While there has also been a concurrent rise in the amount of undergraduate debt for whites as well as blacks, the gap between white and black college graduates has remained roughly the...
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