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Christine Remigio

How Student Loans Amplify Existing Inequalities

Abstract

Student loans can be seen as an investment to help college. However, it contributes to the perpetuation of inequality in wealth by race by making less advantaged students vulnerable to a high risk of student loan debt compared to their counterparts. I ask: How does student loan debt among different groups reflect existing social inequalities? I used data from the NLSY 97 cohort to examine race and class in relation to student loan debt (n=668). To analyze the data, I use ANOVA to examine disparities and variances in student loan debt between different racial and class groups. The control variable was class, based on low, middle, and high SES. The independent variable was race. The dependent variable was student loan debt. In the first analysis, I compared blacks to other race. This showed that black students of middle- and high-class had higher means compared to the other groups. In the next analysis, I compared the means of Hispanic students compared to other race. This showed that Hispanic students of middle- and high-class had higher means compared to the other groups. In the final analysis I compared the means of white students to other race. In this analysis the means of white students with a low SES as well as other race and high SES had higher averages of student loan debt.