{"id":72867,"date":"2019-08-30T11:40:07","date_gmt":"2019-08-30T16:40:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/?p=72867"},"modified":"2019-08-30T11:40:12","modified_gmt":"2019-08-30T16:40:12","slug":"surviving-student-debt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2019\/08\/30\/surviving-student-debt\/","title":{"rendered":"Surviving Student Debt"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Recent estimates indicate that roughly 45 million students in the United States have incurred student loans during college. Democratic candidates like Senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders have\u00a0proposed legislation<\/a>\u00a0to relieve or cancel\u00a0 this debt burden. Sociologist\u00a0Tressie McMillan Cottom<\/a>\u2019s congressional\u00a0testimony<\/a>\u00a0on behalf of Warren\u2019s student loan relief plan last April reveals the importance of sociological perspectives on the debt crisis. Sociologists have recently documented the conditions driving student loan debt<\/a> and its impacts across race and gender.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\"College<\/a>\n<\/div>
Photo Credit: Mike Rastiello<\/a>, Flickr CC
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In recent decades, students have enrolled in universities at increasing rates due to the \u201ceducation gospel,\u201d where college credentials are touted as public goods and career necessities, encouraging students to seek credit. At the same time, student loan debt has rapidly increased, urging students to ask whether the risks of loan debt during early adulthood outweigh the reward of a college degree. Student loan risks include economic hardship, mental health problems, and delayed adult transitions such as starting a family.Individual debt has also led to disparate impacts among students of color<\/a>, who are more likely to hail from low-income families. Recent evidence suggests that Black students are more likely to drop out of college due to debt and return home<\/a> after incurring more debt than their white peers. Racial disparities in student loan debt continue into their mid-thirties and impact the white-Black racial wealth gap.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\"365.75\"<\/a>\n<\/div>
Photo Credit: Kirstie Warner<\/a>, Flickr CC
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Other work reveals gendered disparities in student debt<\/a>. One survey found that while women were more likely to incur debt than their male peers, men with higher levels of student debt were more likely to drop out of college than women with similar amounts of debt. The authors suggest that women\u2019s labor market opportunities \u2014 often more likely to require college degrees than men\u2019s \u2014 may account for these differences. McMillan Cottom\u2019s interviews with 109 students from for-profit colleges<\/a> uncovers how Black, low-income women in particular bear the burden of student loans. For many of these women, the rewards of college credentials outweigh the risks of high student loan debt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Amber Joy<\/a> is a PhD candidate in the Department of Sociology at the University of Minnesota. Her current research interests include punishment, policing, victimization, youth, and the intersections of race, gender, and sexuality. Her dissertation explores youth responses to sexual violence within youth correctional facilities.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Recent estimates indicate that roughly 45 million students in the United States have incurred student loans during college. Democratic candidates like Senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders have\u00a0proposed legislation\u00a0to relieve or cancel\u00a0 this debt burden. Sociologist\u00a0Tressie McMillan Cottom\u2019s congressional\u00a0testimony\u00a0on behalf of Warren\u2019s student loan relief plan last April reveals the importance of sociological perspectives on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1851,"featured_media":72874,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[29,34,13,285,23708],"class_list":["post-72867","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-class","tag-education","tag-inequality","tag-raceethnicity","tag-raceethnicity-education"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/files\/2019\/08\/8832771142_8398be0f5a_o.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72867","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1851"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=72867"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72867\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":72873,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72867\/revisions\/72873"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/72874"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72867"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72867"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72867"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}