Abstract
This article claims that Black Americans, especially Black women have made substantial progress in college enrollment and degree attainment in recent decades. From 2000 to 2015, Black American females were either second to Asian males or third to Asian males and Asian females in their proportion of those enrolled in college in the United States. In 2016, there were 2.446 million Black women and 1.841 million Black men aged 18 and over with at least a bachelor’s degree. However, these achievements have come at a very high financial cost, compared to other groups. The factors cited for the high debt burden on Black American students, especially Black women include: the shift from grants to loans with interests to pay for college; lack of scholarships (research assistantship and traineeship) compared to students from other groups; the high cost of college education at for-profit institutions; and lack of funding from parents or family members. A number of recommendations to manage this problem, including increase in the number of “grant aid” and lowering the cost of undergraduate instruction, are presented in this article.
Highlights
This article began by providing examples showing that Black American females tend to work a lot harder for the same or similar opportunities earned by their male counterparts, and members of other groups
The article presented data showing that Black Americans, especially Black women, have made substantial progress in college enrollment and college degree attainment, even though there is a visible gap between them and other racial groups in the country such as Asians and Whites
One major factor for this relative high cost of college education to Black Americans is the shift from mostly grants to loans that the federal and state governments provide to students, with Blacks experiencing the largest amount of debt burden
Summary
Among all of the groups and sub-groups in the United States, Black American females (women and girls) tend to work twice as hard or more to get any op-. 46%, 42%, and 34% of Asian women, White women, and Black women respectively were employed in management, professional, and related jobs in 2010 (United States Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2016). This current work illustrates a continuation of this trend, whereby Black women are among the top groups enrolled in college and have substantially increased their overall numbers of various types and levels of college or university degrees, they are paying a very high financial cost for their higher education, compared with members of other racial and cultural groups. Some recommendations for reducing this high debt burden on Black American students, especially Black women are presented
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