MN lists 10 things Black America needs to know about college debt.

1. White college graduates have over seven times the wealth of Black college graduates.

According to Contexts, a sociology magazine that describes itself as making “cutting-edge social research accessible to general readers,” education is not always the great equalizer.

“The median white adult who attended college has 7.2 times more wealth than the median Black adult who attended college and 3.9 times more wealth than the median Latino adult who attended college,” contexts reported.

2. Students taking out loans to finance education has increased by 20 percent.

According to the Pew Research Center, students who took out student loans to fund their education rose from 49 percent in 1993 to 69 percent in 2012. This percentage represents approximately seven out of every 10 college students.

3. The Black and white racial wealth gap is getting worse.

While Black people are more educated than ever before, the racial wealth gap has worsened in the last 20 years.

According to the Economic Policy Institute’s State of America Wages report released in 2019, the racial wealth gap among Black and white college graduates increased from 17.2 percent in 2000 to 22.5 percent in 2019.

Among those with advanced degrees, the wealth gap increased from 12.5 percent to 17.6 percent.

4. Black college graduates have thousands more in college debt than white graduates.

According to the White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for African Americans, “Black college graduates have nearly $25,000 more student loan debt: an average of $52,726 in student debt, compared to $28,006 for the typical White bachelor’s graduate.”

5. Black college graduates owe more in college debt, while white graduates owe less.

“On average, Black graduates owe 6 percent more than they have borrowed, while White graduates owe 10 percent less than they have borrowed,” the initiative says.

It also says, “Nearly half (48 percent) of all Black graduates owe more on their federal undergraduate loans four years after graduating with bachelor’s degrees, compared to just 17 percent of White graduates.”

6. More Black students receive Pell Grants than any other demographic.

Statistics show Black students received the most Pell grants of all demographics to help fund their education. The Education Data Initiative shows that 58 percent of Pell Grant recipients were Black in the 2015-2016 school year, which is the most recent data available by race and gender. [MORE]