Sixty-five percent of the U.S.’s student debt belongs to women borrowers and women repay student loans at a slower rate than men, according to the American Association of University Women (AAUW).
The AAUW announced in May updates to its findings in its 2017 Deeper In Debt: Women And Student Loans report. The report is based on the organization’s analysis of U.S. government data.
College costs have been rising faster than median household income. When the AAUW also considered gender pay gaps and the fact women take out larger loans, it concluded that student debt is “burdening women disproportionately.”
The AAUW reports that women are responsible for $890 billion in student loan debt as of mid-2018, compared with $833 billion a year earlier. The amount of men’s student loans remained about the same -- about $479 billion in 2018 compared with $477 million last year.
College and university enrollment has reached into the tens of millions, with women being more than half of the enrollees. Forty-four percent of undergraduate women took out loans in comparison to 39 percent of men in the 2015 - 2016 school year. Those women tended to take out $400 more than their male peers to cover the cost of college. The accrued student debt is $1,500 greater for women than men.
Students of various backgrounds bear some or all the responsibility to get themselves a degree, which encourages many men and women to take on educational debt. Some college students turn to part-time or even full-time work to further pay for their studies. AAUW discovered that there were some disparities that affect women more. In situations where students work while in school, men tended to have higher wages than women. There was no sign of improvement after graduation either.
AAUW’s senior researcher Kevin Miller stated in the Deeper in Debt report, “Women working full time with college degrees make 26 percent less than their male counterparts, though the gap is somewhat smaller immediately after college (18 percent one year after graduation and 20 percent four years after graduation).”
Lower pay means taking on greater student debt and having less income to allocate to debt repayment.
Most women and men are repaying their student loans – more women than men; however women also take the lead in not repaying their student loans and they also take up to two years longer than men to pay off their debt, according to AUUW.
Between one and four years after graduation, men paid off 38 percent of their outstanding debt while women paid off 31 percent. When AAUW considered racial disparities, black and Hispanic women repaid student loan debt at a slower rate than white and Asian women because of pay gaps among different races. The results were similar for men.