This graph is making the rounds again on other social media sites. It begs the question "Why do men pay off their student loans, but women can't/won't?"
It's not Black history month, but you already know the answer!
Black women are forced to borrow more for their education. Then Black women are paid less when they graduate, even for the same degree.
A disproportionate amount of the $1.7 Trillion of loan debt (not a typo. Trillion. With a "T.") is held by Black women that did everything right)
If a Black woman from a not rich family gets straight As, 5 As in her AP classes, and scores a 1580 out of 1600 on her SAT, and gets student loans to go to UCLA to study computer science, should she take it? (-$100K of debt).
Should she then get the Masters at SDSU? (-$50K).
Where did she go wrong?
Should she not have gone to grad school for that Masters in computer science?
Or should she not have gone to UCLA for the bachelors in computer science?
Maybe she should have gone to med school or law school instead? Oh wait, that's more expensive.🤔
Ah I've got it!
She should not have been born poor! Then she wouldn't have to borrow so much!
And she should not have been born Black! Then she'd get paid fairly relative to other women!
And she should not have been born a woman! Then she'd get paid fairly compared to men!
We haven't even talked about the career impacts of child care or end-of-life care for older parents yet.
We haven't even talked about slower rates of promotion, lower probability of making partner or getting tenure, or gendered performance reviews or professor evaluations yet.
Most American college students borrow under $26K for college.
But 73% of Black students borrow at least $57K. Because their families have less net worth. Because of racism.
And Black women borrow more than Black men.
And much of the "gender pay gap" is the "race pay gap" again. The pay gap between Black and brown women and white women is bigger than the pay gap between white women and white men.
https://hachyderm.io/@mekkaokereke/109906587205614822
Reducing racism reduces the gender pay gap. Racism ruins everything!
So yeah, if a white man borrows $25K, he's more likely to have paid off 30% of it 10 years later than a Black woman who borrowed $60K.
Trying to understand the chart without understanding racism and sexism, is impossible.
Attached: 1 image Happy #BlackHistoryMonth ! I haven't made it to Black History yet. I'm still on white US history. Q: Enough about racism for a second. Take a break! I'm worried about gender issues in the US too. For example, why is the gender pay gap in the US so large? It's one of the worst in the OECD! A: You know why. Racism! In the US, the pay gap between white men and white women, is smaller than the pay gap between white women and Black and Latinx women. https://data.oecd.org/earnwage/gender-wage-gap.htm 1/N #BlackMastodon
And yes, this is another reason why I contributed to the Name, Image, and Likeness work that lets college athletes earn money in college. I don't care about college sports. I don't care if your team wins or loses.
I care about Black kids being kept in artificial poverty.
Going to college as a kid from a wealthy family, is not the same as going to college as a child who had to sign up for $100,000 in student loans. Loan kid continues losing.
(Separate convo: college should not be so expensive)
@mekkaokereke I'm less than convinced that those are separate conversations? Student loans effectively subsidize "expensive colleges", which isn't quite the same thing as subsidizing "colleges"
Edit: by which I mean expensive colleges get more from the program, because it reduces price sensitivity of their consumer base.
@kilpatds @mekkaokereke No, student loans subsidize inexpensive college too. I got my BA from City College of New York with a scholarship that gave me $2000 per semester, but had to take out over $10,000 a year in loans in order to
* buy a printer $$
* upgrade my computer $
* pay for internet $$
* pay my landlord $$$$$
Without that I could not have finished the degree as a full time student, after years of taking classes part time to get myself halfway.
@kilpatds @mekkaokereke Ah, I see the angle you're coming at, now.
Nothing about the necessity of the loans for students, just how much money the school can make.
@LinuxAndYarn @kilpatds @mekkaokereke the thing that bugs me the most is that my payments don’t even support the school, they support the bank. I wouldn’t mind paying some interest to the schools, but the never ending payments that go to make the banks owners even more absurdly rich, that’s just one more amplifier of inequality
If the DOE really wants to encourage education with their loan policy, the policy would be that no student ever pays interest on any student loan
@mekkaokereke I’m starting to think where she “went wrong” was going to college in the U.S.
Even as a white guy, I’m making enough to be paying down my student loans and a mortgage, but I wouldn’t’ve been able to make a down payment without a surprise windfall, and there’s no way I could support a family without higher pay or less debt. I hate knowing I’ve got it so much better than so many now, but so much less than a generation ago, and nowhere near enough to make anything better
@ShadSterling @mekkaokereke The issue is the US system for sure. I do not have any student debt and a BS (ha!) degree. I was able to pay mine off (I had to pay for housing and food).
Educating the population is good for everyone (but the 1%) of the country. People need to stop whining about the idea of someone “getting a free ride” when making a few times more or getting a little when they make several times less.
The same people are ok with those that have 100,000 times as much…
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