Black women who choose to pursue higher education are more likely to rely on financial aid to attend, due to multiple factors. For example, the racial wealth gap as well as the gender pay gap both have a tremendous impact on Black women—particularly those who must work part-time and full-time jobs to afford their college tuition. Additionally, while pursuing a degree, some Black women must juggle employment responsibilities, alongside serving as caregivers, in addition to prioritizing their academic work. All of these factors lead Black women to being more reliant on financial aid to enroll in college—and therefore, on average, to carrying the largest debt burden of any demographic group of students.1

There has been a lot of recent discourse about student loan debt and its disparate impact on communities of color—but while this discourse has crunched a lot of data, it has only superficially centered the lived experiences of Black women. As a result, many of the popular perceptions of Black women in higher education focus on monolithic notions or false narratives, such as that Black women are not pursuing higher education due to the fear of facing a heavy student debt burden.2 Meanwhile, crucial issues—such as reasoning behind the egregious disparities in undergraduate borrowing by race and gender, or the recent problems with the rollout of the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA), which had a disproportionate effect on Black students3—have failed to receive the much-needed attention they deserve. This misdirection of the discussion underscores the need for a more comprehensive exploration into Black women’s lived experiences as they pursue and persist through college. This report will highlight not only the financial barriers faced by Black women in their pursuit of higher education, but also their pathways to access and success.

This report is a collaboration between TCF and the Mary Jane Legacy Project (MJLP),4 the first nationwide examination of the policies affecting Black women’s postsecondary and post-baccalaureate pathways. Led by principal investigators Dr. Lori Patton Davis and Dr. Nadrea Njoku and funded by the Lumina Foundation through the Fund for Racial Justice and Equity, the project also serves as the first national archive capturing these experiences from a wide array of Black women. The MJLP name honors Mary Jane Patterson, the first Black woman to receive a bachelor’s degree in the United States. For additional information on the project and methodology please read the first report in the series.5

Given that financial circumstances are key in determining whether a student pursues college at all, it is critical that researchers interested in expanding access to higher education explore how Black women are accessing the financial means to pursue college through scholarships, grants, and financial aid. This report will first present the historical and current contexts in which Black women have pursued higher education and then present in depth the barriers that they face in trying to pay for that education. It will then present the themes and takeaways resulting from interviews with project participants—centering the experiences of Black women in higher education—and conclude with a series of recommendations to address the needs of Black women in higher education.

Historical Context

As a direct result of consistent state divestment in higher education,6 colleges and universities have increased their tuition and related fees to recoup the lost revenue not covered by state and federal support. The late 1970s and early 1980s saw the establishment of innovative federal financial aid policies that focused on directly funding low-income students in lieu of funding the postsecondary institutions they attended.7 The Pell Grant, established in 1972, which provides federal aid to students who demonstrate exceptional financial need, is one of the most salient higher education programs that directly impact college access and affordability for marginalized and low-income students. The Pell Grant is often associated with Rhode Island Senator Claiborne Pell, who created the Basic Educational Opportunity Program, a precursor of the Pell program.

The policy undergirding the Pell program would not have come to fruition if not for the contribution and advocacy of Lois Dickson Rice, an unsung but unforgotten Black woman and education policy expert.8 In the early 1970s, there were very few Black women who were influencing federal policy, but Rice leveraged her role as a vice president at The College Board, a nonprofit organization focused on expanding access to higher education, to persuade lawmakers to make college more economically accessible to Black, Latinx, and low-income students by helping to design the Pell Grant program. The impact of her work is awe-inspiring: to date, the Pell Grant program has helped provide over 80 million people access to college.9 Rice was a trailblazer and advocate who leaned on the data and her own lived experience of growing up as a low-income Black woman to create a program that would ensure that low-income students would not be precluded from higher education.

While the Pell program opened doors for many, the aid it provides is no longer enough.

While the Pell program opened doors for many, the aid it provides is no longer enough. Tuition costs have continued to increase across the board, with a key uptick in college tuition in the 1980s, while funding for the Pell program has failed to keep pace. This uptick in college costs coincides with the creation and expansion of various other forms of federal financial aid for students and families, such as Direct Loan, Perkins Loans, Parent PLUS loans,10 Stafford Loans, Fannie Mae, and others. These programs, established in the 1980s and early 1990s, were mostly structured to help middle-class families send their children to college, however. Unfortunately, despite the expansion of federal loan programs, higher education remains inaccessible to many low-income families. A half-century after the trend of pushing more of the costs of college onto the student began, many students are now forced to take on egregious amounts of student loan debt in order to pursue a degree, which has implications for wealth-building and economic justice.

Current Context

Between 2011 and 2023, the percentage of Black women with a bachelor’s degree or higher jumped from 21.7 percent to 31.4 percent.11 (See Figure 1.) The data clearly demonstrates the strides Black women were making in higher education. However, affordability remains an obstacle to many and student debt a huge burden. Although these data suggest that Black women are making positive strides in college access and attainment, different data indicate a more striking challenge—that a college education may not necessarily elevate a Black woman’s societal standing:

  • Black women finish their undergraduate degrees with more debt than White, Hispanic/Latinx and Asian men and women.12
  • The average amount borrowed by Black undergraduate women is $37,558, while the average for the overall population is $31,172.13
  • Two out of every five Black women in college are mothers, making them more likely than women from other backgrounds to be raising children while in college.14
  • Black student parents have higher student debt compared to parents or nonparents of every other racial or ethnic background. On average, Black student parents borrow $18,100, while the average student debt among all students is $13,500.15
Figure 1

While Black women are increasingly pursuing higher education, they are encountering structural barriers and a financial aid system that fails to support affordability, undermining their attempts to attain economic mobility and generational wealth.

Addressing the Impact of Financial Aid Barriers on Black Women in Higher Education

Black women face multiple barriers associated with accessing financial aid that can significantly impact their ability to pursue higher education and to thrive after graduation, particularly because they are disproportionately affected by student debt. In particular, Black women can face challenges navigating the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA), receive less aid in the form of grants and scholarships, have their economic mobility limited by student debt, and suffer psychological effects from the stress and strain of student debt.

Barriers to access and missed opportunities for student aid. The FAFSA process can be complex and overwhelming, particularly for first-generation college students who may not have family members who are familiar with the financial aid system. Black women who are also “first gen” and have to navigate this process without family guidance may struggle to complete the forms correctly and on time, which can limit their access to much-needed financial aid. Due to the complexity of the application and the misunderstandings that can arise, many Black women may not apply for all the aid they are eligible for, leading to gaps in funding. This can result in higher out-of-pocket costs, forcing them to take on more loans or work multiple jobs to cover expenses.

Financial aid disparities and college choice. Black women are often awarded less aid in the form of grants and scholarships compared to their white counterparts, leading them to rely more heavily on loans to finance their education.16 This unequal distribution exacerbates the already high levels of student debt they carry. Furthermore, the amount of aid a student receives can heavily influence where they choose to attend college—Black women may have little choice but to attend institutions that offer less support or have fewer resources, which can affect their overall college experience and success.

Impact on career and economic mobility. The burden of student debt can limit Black women’s career choices and economic mobility, as they may need to prioritize jobs that allow them to start repaying loans immediately over those that align with their passions or long-term goals. This financial pressure can also delay wealth-building activities such as homeownership, investing, or starting a business, perpetuating economic disparities.

Psychological and emotional toll. The pressure of navigating financial aid, combined with the knowledge of accruing significant debt, can take a psychological toll on Black women. The stress associated with debt can impact their academic performance, mental health, and overall well-being. Many Black women feel a strong sense of responsibility to succeed and support their families financially. The burden of student debt can lead to feelings of guilt or failure if they are unable to meet these expectations, adding to the emotional strain.

Navigating the Student Aid Superstructure

In 2019, over 16 million undergraduate students were enrolled in college throughout the United States; a little over 2.3 million (12.7 percent) of them were Black students.17 From 2009 to 2019, there was a stark decline in college enrollment among Black undergraduate students, from 2.5 million to 2.1 million.18 This significant decline has been partly attributed to the rising cost of college and to the growing student debt crisis.19 The student debt crisis has disproportionately affected Black and Latinx students who aspire to attain a college degree, as well as their families.20 Researchers point out how the student debt crisis is taking a particular toll on Black students, who frequently do not have sufficient resources to cover the entire cost of attendance (such as meals, transportation, housing, and emergencies) without borrowing.21

The road to and through higher education for Black women requires engagement with a financial aid system that includes many obstacles.

The road to and through higher education for Black women requires engagement with a financial aid system that includes many obstacles. Prospective college students from first-generation and/or low-income backgrounds first must confront the reality of their economic well-being and that of their family when selecting an institution of higher education and figuring out how they will meet the costs associated with enrollment. Those in need of financial assistance often turn to the FAFSA to determine their eligibility for the federal Work–Study program, need-based financial aid, and their eligibility for federal student loans. The FAFSA is the single most important pathway to receiving federal financial aid for those seeking access to post-secondary education.

However, attempts to navigate the financial aid superstructure can result in both emotional and economic distress for Black women. Many of them are first-generation students, who face unique challenges with FAFSA access and completion, making it especially difficult for those students to navigate the student aid superstructure. Barriers to FAFSA completion can include unfamiliarity with the form, confusion about whose information should be included, and difficulties acquiring tax information.22 Students may delay college decisions as they await news on their eligibility for aid, and others who are concerned about lack of affordability will forgo college altogether. Students have to weigh the financial risk of student loan borrowing with the prospective return on investment of their degree or certificate. Unfortunately, not only do most students not know how much aid they are eligible to receive until they complete the FAFSA form, but also, they have only a vague sense of what their income and employability might be after degree attainment. Navigating fears of ineligibility for any aid or concerns about only qualifying for loans may be enough to cause students to opt out of completing the FAFSA. An increasing number of Black and Latinx students do not complete the FAFSA because they simply do not have enough information about how to complete the form.23Too many low-income students concerned about the rising cost of tuition and lengthy repayment terms associated with Direct Loans are unaware that the FAFSA also helps them unlock other forms of financial aid, such as grant aid.

Intergenerational Debt Burdens and the Unending Cycle of Repayment

In 2022, over a third of Black households had student loan debt (see Figure 2), and nearly half of all of all Black women who attended college—whether they completed or not, and regardless of if they continued/furthered their education—had student loan debt.24 While some students view student loan borrowing as an inherent good that allows them to invest in themselves and their future, others are concerned about the effect of borrowing on their long-term financial outcomes and have a different relationship with the weight of their decision to borrow.

FIGURE 2

Inequalities in access to wealth and ability to repay exacerbate financial distress among Black student loan borrowers, who are disproportionately burdened by higher debt and may feel the effects of their debt burden more than their white counterparts.25 Unfortunately, the burden of student loan debt doesn’t fall on the borrower alone—entire families can be affected by the weight of repayment, inhibiting intergenerational mobility. While undergraduate student borrowers have annual and aggregate limits on their borrowing, parents can also borrow federal loans to cover the cost of the student’s education. These loans, which are called Parent PLUS loans, are capped only at the full cost of attendance, allowing a parent to borrow far more than their child. Parents who take on Parent PLUS loans to support their children face a higher fixed interest rate than students who participate in the Direct Loan program, pay an origination fee for each loan, and have to begin repayment immediately after the loan is fully disbursed, unless they request a deferment. What’s more, Parent PLUS borrowers are not required to complete loan entrance or exit counseling, which is required for student borrowers and is aimed at making sure that borrowers understand the terms of their loans and their repayment options. Parent PLUS borrowers also have decidedly less generous repayment options than student borrowers. Both parent and student borrowers are tasked with navigating the financial aid process and assessing risk regardless of their own financial literacy and experience with debt.26

Unfortunately, the burden of student loan debt doesn’t fall on the borrower alone—entire families can be affected by the weight of repayment, inhibiting intergenerational mobility.

Upon graduation, the financial burden of Black women’s student loan debt often prohibits them from accessing the middle class, forcing them to face tough choices between loan repayment and things such as investing in retirement and pursuing homeownership, further entrenching the racial wealth gap. Black women take on proportionately higher debt for postsecondary credentials but also face unique challenges in gaining employment upon completion. Regardless of gender, Black college graduates are the most likely to be underemployed.27 Labor market discrimination results in Black graduates experiencing fewer job opportunities, lower pay, poorer employee benefits such as health insurance and employer-contributed retirement accounts, and greater job instability than their white counterparts. In 2022, Black women earned just 66 percent of what white men were paid.28 Nearly 20 percent of Black families have negative net worth due to debt.29 Typical Black student loan holders aged in their 30s hold a negative net worth compared to white borrowers, who by that point have often broken even.30 Given the significant challenges that Black borrowers face in repayment, nearly a decade after beginning their degrees, they—especially Black women—see little to no return on their financial investment. Worse still, two decades after beginning their degrees and incurring their initial debt amount, Black borrowers see almost no reduction in their loans, with the median Black borrowers still owing 95 percent of their borrowing total.31 While federal student loan borrowers experiencing financial hardship during repayment have some access to relief through forbearance, deferments, and income-driven repayment (IDR), the struggle to make payments can feel insurmountable. In the year after completing a bachelor’s degree, Black borrowers are more likely than any other racial group to enroll in IDR.32

To avoid the burden of debt, some students also seek employment through the federal Work–Study program. Established in 1964, the federal Work–Study program provides part-time employment to undergraduate and graduate students who demonstrate financial need. These opportunities may be on or off campus, but students must apply for and be accepted for the job placement. While intended to promote community service work and work related to a student’s academic and/or career interests, available positions do not always align with a student’s course of study. Despite this, the Work–Study program offers crucial financial support to high-need students. A student’s financial aid award letter will dictate how much federal aid money is available to the student under Work–Study per semester. Wages for work study jobs vary greatly. Colleges must pay at least the federal minimum wage, $7.25 per hour in the 2024-25 academic year, but if state or local law requires a minimum wage, schools must pay that higher wage. Federal Work–Study funding and jobs are not guaranteed each year. While earnings through Work–Study are limited, they play an important role in supplementing any aid students receive and can assist them with living expenses and associated costs. Black women are also more likely than their counterparts to be student parents, meaning as they juggle academic work, Work–Study employment, and tuition payments, many have the added burden of child care duties or unaffordable child care costs.33 While working during college is necessary for many students, it can have a severe negative impact on academic performance and completion.34

Graduate Debt Burden while Pursuing Career Aspirations

Many of the debt challenges Black women face extend beyond undergraduate education. Graduate program enrollment has seen significant growth since the Great Recession, with master’s degrees in particular becoming more ubiquitous. Students most commonly pursue graduate education to get advanced learning or training in a specialized discipline, to increase their employability, or acquire better pay. Labor market forces have also rewarded post-baccalaureate education, which is particularly appealing to a group carrying a significant debt burden. This explains in part the increased number of Black women pursuing graduate education over the past thirty years. While Black women were less likely than white men to have a graduate degree in the early 1990s, they were more likely to have one by 2021.35 In fall 2021, Black women made up 62.6 percent of all Black enrollments in graduate school.36

While Black women were less likely than white men to have a graduate degree in the early 1990s, they were more likely to have one by 2021.

While the cost of graduate education varies by institution, program level, and area of study, total tuition and fees can be substantial, leading many students to borrow. Not only do more women take on debt for graduate studies, but Black women in particular are more likely to borrow and carry larger balances for graduate students than any of their counterparts.37 While there are numerous factors at work, the biggest culprits are the lack of institutional aid offered to Black graduate students in the form of assistantships, the fact many Black women hold debt from their undergraduate education, and the accessibility of uncapped borrowing in the federal loan system. Across all fields, only 21 percent of Black doctoral students report teaching or research assistantships as their main source of support, compared with 49 percent of Asian doctoral students, 48 percent of white doctoral students, and 37 percent of Hispanic doctoral students.38 With Black women making up 64.1 percent of all doctorates awarded to African Americans in 2022,39 it’s clear any underfunding by way of assistantships disproportionately impacts them. In general, there is a significant relationship between undergraduate and graduate borrowing; that is, one’s financial circumstances do not change considerably in the time between achieving a bachelor’s degree and enrolling in graduate school, so someone needing to finance their undergraduate degree through loans is an indicator they may need to do the same for an advanced degree. Black graduate students are less likely to be able to afford graduate school without working and are more likely to finance their education through multiple sources, including employment, credit cards, and student loans.40 Despite the specter of heavy debt burdens, the promise of a good return on investment and the desire to further their education causes many to turn to the federal and/or private student loan markets for financial support.

Institutions Providing Students with Access and Opportunity Despite Limited Resources

Institutional endowment can play a large role in a school’s ability to attract, retain, and support students, whether in graduate or undergraduate programs. Just as graduate students need the financial support assistantships can provide, undergraduates and particularly low-income students need institutional aid to thrive and complete their course of study. Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) conferred 13 percent of all bachelor’s degrees awarded to Black students in academic year 2021–22.41 Evidence also suggests that HBCUs provide more college access to Pell eligible students42 than non-HBCUs, underscoring the significance of these institutions not just to Black students but the economy writ large. HBCUs also prepare students for long-term success at the graduate level with more than one-fifth of graduates who earned a science and engineering doctorate degree between 2015 and 2019 earning their bachelor’s degree from a HBCU.43 Despite this fact, HBCUs continue to be chronically underfunded due to state disinvestment and lower endowments. Functionally, underfunding means fewer directly sponsored institutional aid programs.

The chronic underfunding of postsecondary institutions in the South, where over half the nation’s Black population lives, has created a particular challenge for HBCU students. Though there are only two women’s colleges in the HBCU systems, the vast majority of HBCU students are women. Women first began attending HBCUs at larger rates than men in the 1970s, and the percentage of enrollment at HBCUs that are women increased from 53 percent in 1976 to 64 percent in 2022.44 In Alabama, home to more than a dozen HBCUs, per-student state spending decreased by over 36 percent in the decade immediately following the Great Recession in 2008.45 State spending on higher education finally began to increase again in 2019, though only by single digits, and overall funding remains well below pre-recession levels.46 The scenario in Alabama is a troubling reminder of how drastically state appropriations have changed, even as more diverse students are attending college. Deep public spending cuts force institutions to make up the difference in the form of higher tuition and fees charged to students. With Black women pursuing postsecondary education at particularly high rates, decreases in state investments means less funding to support these endeavors and more financial burden on their households. Less per-student funding from the state leaves students and their families on the hook for thousands of dollars in unmet need, resulting in families looking to student loans as the only option to help their student attain a college education. Over the past decade, Parent PLUS loans have filled the gap in support for disproportionately many Black families.47

The gap in unmet need as it relates to tuition and other expenses is particularly devastating—in the South, and nationwide—as a larger share of students living in or near poverty are enrolling in college.

The gap in unmet need as it relates to tuition and other expenses is particularly devastating—in the South, and nationwide—as a larger share of students living in or near poverty are enrolling in college. With the state unwilling to invest in their future, low-income and low-wealth Black students are asked to invest in themselves, which often means borrowing against future earnings by incurring considerable student loan debt. Student loans have become such a ubiquitous part of the Black college experience that by 2019, 30 percent of Black families held education debt.48 By comparison, 20 percent of white families and 14 percent of Hispanic families had educational loan debt.49 Regardless of their degree completion, students of color from financially vulnerable communities face barriers to employment and job retention, and thus, ultimately, student loan repayment. White borrowers face less labor market discrimination and fewer historic barriers to wealth building than people of color, and thus have a built-in advantage.50

The financial burden of student debt is imparted from a longstanding structural system of economic discrimination and exploitation. Black women have the highest national workforce participation rates of any demographic of women yet their monthly unemployment rate is consistently high.51 Despite their tremendous contributions to the American economy, workforce discrimination, persistent wage disparities and underemployment leave them particularly vulnerable to economic volatility. But it’s not just Black women who struggle in the face of economic hardship. More than one-quarter of Black children live in poverty, leaving Black girls struggling to gain economic mobility in a system rife with gender and racial inequities. The average white child is born into a family with ten times more wealth than the average Black child.52 Children born into wealthy families are less likely to rely on student loans to finance their higher education and those who do, can borrow amounts far below those without access to financial safety nets. Additionally, of parents with debt for their children’s and grandchildren’s education, Black parents are more likely than any other group to have their own student loan debt.53 As students look to make up the shortfall in their college funding, they turn to a familiar source: their families. Though parents providing economic support to their dependents isn’t a recent phenomenon, families without resources and access to wealth turn to loans in a last-ditch effort to ensure their students’ ability to attend—and hopefully graduate from—college.

Themes and Takeaways

Many of the MJLP participants shared the importance of postsecondary education as a pathway to financial freedom and upward mobility. Black women know and understand the long-term benefit of what attaining a college degree and pursuing graduate education means for their career trajectory. Exploring how Black women access financial aid and scholarships is critical to understanding how Black women are able to enroll in and complete higher education programs. In this section, we will shed light on four themes emerging from the interviews with participants regarding their experiences with finding scholarships and various forms of financial aid to attend college.

1. Black women pursue scholarships and aid to keep the costs low.

When it comes to accessing college, most of the participants shared that they understood the need for grant-based financial aid and that it would provide them the best path to a debt-free education. Merit-based scholarships, which are grants awarded based on academic or extracurricular achievement, were crucial for participants. First-generation and low-income students frequently choose their institution based on the type and amount of financial aid they receive, in that way the aid they receive dictates not only where they’ll go to college but also if they’ll go to college at all. Merit aid helps to lower college costs and can cover the full tuition for an enrolled student across their entire college career or come as a one-time award. Often a student will need to meet and maintain certain eligibility requirements which may be scholastic or otherwise. For example, one participant, Kioshana, secured a full academic scholarship, which covered her undergraduate expenses, allowing her to graduate debt-free.

Access to financial aid played a crucial role in another participant, Amara’s, college decision, allowing her to attend a predominately white institution (PWI) that offered substantial financial support, rather than an HBCU. Her journey was supported by her high school advisor and various scholarship programs. Amara explains:

I had dreams of going to HBCUs but it was a PWI that gave me the most funding to be able to get my education.… It was a merit-based scholarship.… she was like “Don’t give up hope … try to apply direct.” And so I applied directly to Mount Holyoke and I got in.

It’s worth noting many highly selective institutions do not offer merit scholarships, instead opting to cover a student’s demonstrated financial need as determined by the FAFSA.

The financial conditions within a home may not only be the motivation for a student to apply but also determine where they take their educational journey. Low-income students concerned about burdening their family, particularly if they have younger siblings, may choose colleges based on their aid package. These same students may be more inclined to apply for different kinds of aid and to apply earlier in the aid cycle if they’re aware familial support may not be available. For example, one participant, Chanel, received multiple scholarships and financial aid offers, which played a crucial role in her college choice process and her ability to continue her education. She explains:

My mom was very clear, “We don’t got a lot of money.”… I did really well. I got a lot of scholarships. I got a lot of full ride offers at different places.

2. Access to state and federal aid programs and grants was extremely critical for Black women’s college journeys.

While state support of higher education remains stagnant , individual states have begun to respond to calls for heightened support of economically disadvantaged students. While federal aid is available in the form of grants and student loans, states can also use information from the FAFSA to determine eligibility for specific programs. For example, New York’s Tuition Assistance Program (TAP), a form of gift aid that does not need to be repaid, offers need-based assistance ranging from $1,000 to $5,665 for the 2024–25 academic year.

Specific programs and grants, such as the federal Educational Opportunity Program (EOP) and the private nonprofit Emma Bowen Foundation, provided essential financial support to one of the participants, Jasmine, who highlighted how her internship through the Emma Bowen Foundation provided both income and scholarships, reducing her financial burden:

One of the big pieces that helped me be able to afford college … was finding a program called the Emma Bowen Foundation for Minorities in Media.… It contributed a lot to my being able to afford to the point where I could take out student loans but my parents didn’t have to take out student loans … being an RA—that covered housing—so that reduced my costs a lot.

Financial aid and affordability are crucial factors in college decisions. This was the case for one participant, Habiba. She was part of the federal Educational Opportunity Program (EOP), which provided significant financial support, making her college education possible:

Occasionally there was financial support whenever I needed it, but I worked throughout my four years as an undergraduate student and really supported myself mostly.… I was ecstatic about going to Plattsburgh.… I ultimately went with the institution that gave me the most money, the most financial aid.

3. Black women pursue all avenues, including institutional and external aid, to attain a college degree.

Grant aid can be merit-based or need-based. Need-based aid rarely gets enough investment, whether it be institutional, state, or federal aid. Both merit-based and need-based institutional aid and external scholarships helped participants manage their educational expenses. LaTonya’s high school counselor helped her secure various scholarships and grants, which played a significant role in her ability to attend Westchester University.

Financial aid was also a critical factor for Christina. She benefited from external scholarships and grants during her undergraduate education, largely due to her grandfather’s efforts:

In undergrad I had a lot of scholarships, a lot of grants.… My grandfather got me a lot of grants and scholarships through his fraternity through alumni associations.

However, navigating financial aid for graduate school was more challenging, and she had to take out loans and manage payments independently.

When I got to grad school I was like, “What is happening?” It wasn’t familiar to me. So I had to navigate that process as an adult much older and I didn’t know what I was doing.

Graduate students have access to the federal Grad PLUS program as well as private loans. Grad PLUS allows graduate students to borrow up to the full cost of attendance and offers all of the protections available in the federal financial aid system, including access to loan forgiveness programs and IDR plans. Many graduate students also have to work to make ends meet while in graduate school.

4. Access to Work–Study and employment assists with covering expenses.

Participants often relied on employment through the Work–Study program and part-time jobs to support themselves financially during college. Finances were not at the forefront of Francine’s mind initially, as she was primarily focused on pursuing her passion for dance. Francine worked various jobs, including Work–Study positions, to cover her living expenses. However, she acknowledges the long-term impact of student loans, which she continues to pay off with help from her mother.

My mom was helping to pay for some of that.… So for me I don’t think finances were always in the forefront of my mind.… We still paying right now … I wasn’t thinking about that. I really was thinking I want to dance so how can I do that?

Policy Recommendations

Policymakers can address the persistent inequities within the higher education system, but in order to make a meaningful impact, they must pursue a holistic response to address the needs of Black women in higher education. Accordingly, The Century Foundation and the Mary Jane Patterson Legacy Project offer the following set of recommendations to federal and state policymakers. These recommendations address the lack of economic equity inside as well as outside the realm of education, such as the lack of child care resources and the lack of social support—all of which tie into the economic challenges that lead to barriers for Black women who pursue undergraduate or graduate degrees.

Improve data collection and transparency. Disaggregated data is crucial for exposing and addressing equity gaps. Improving educational and financial outcomes for Black women first requires access to the right information. While the U.S. Department of Education recently began receiving race/ethnicity information on FAFSA applicants, reporting disaggregated data on student outcomes (such as three-year cohort default race by race/gender) could take years. However, the department could start publishing data such as that on grant and loan recipients by race and gender much sooner. While various data systems, including the federal IPEDS database, have disaggregated information on enrollment and completion, they lack data that break down financial aid award amounts and financial outcomes by race and gender. For example, financial aid awards are a crucial means of evaluating student support and persistence, but the available data on who receives them is complete. While the total recipient counts of full-time students who are awarded grant/scholarship aid from the federal government, state/local government, or institutions are available, there is no data available on whether some categories of students are more or less likely to receive this aid than others. In addition, while data show that Pell recipients graduate with higher debt loads, there is no data available on whether this is due to the overrepresentation of Black women, who carry high debt loads, among Pell recipients. Disaggregated data on student outcomes should be made publicly available to support informed decision-making on the part of incoming students.

Improve automatic IDR enrollment for borrowers with high risk of default. Black women do not receive the same return on investment from higher education as other groups. While Black women may receive an earnings boost as a result of pursuing higher education, it is not proportional to their debt burden. Black women with bachelor’s degrees earn a median salary of $60,681, far less than Black men, white men, and white women with similar educational attainment.54 With an average of nearly $40,000 in federal undergraduate loans,55 high rates of underemployment, and a large racial and gender wage gap, Black women face a tremendous burden in repayment. Automatic enrollment in an IDR plan would assist economically vulnerable borrowers by lowering monthly payments, helping them avoid late payments, and helping them avoid defaulting on their loans. Unfortunately, those most likely to benefit from IDR are the least knowledgeable about the program.56 Automatic IDR enrollment is intended to address this problem. However, currently, automatic enrollment isn’t actually “automatic”—to enroll borrowers in IDR plans, the Department of Education must first collect borrowers’ written consent to access their tax data so that the department can determine their eligibility for IDR based on their reported income. To avoid this step, the department could make it a term of all federal student loans that the borrower agrees to share tax information necessary to determine eligibility for IDR in the event that the borrower becomes delinquent on the loan for a specified period. That way, the department would already have every student loan borrowers’ consent to access their tax information and could automatically enroll borrowers in IDR when they are at risk of default. This policy change would help borrowers taking out new loans, but not those who already have federal student loans.

For current borrowers, the Department of Education should engage in a public relations campaign utilizing trusted messengers to get borrowers who are not enrolled in IDR plans but could benefit from reduced monthly payments to consent to sharing their tax data to reduce their risk of default.

Equitably endow HBCUs. HBCUs are underfunded and their endowments are chronically smaller than those of their white counterparts. Investments in HBCU endowments that boost institutional aid to HBCU students would help lighten the load and provide additional resources for students and relief for parents. Over the past decade, the enrollment at HBCUs has been mostly Black women, who make up 69 percent of HBCU student population, and so they would be the primary beneficiaries of such increases in financial aid and scholarship funding. In “Achieving Financial Equity and Justice for HBCUs,” The Century Foundation (TCF) has documented significant disparities in endowments among HBCUs.57 As a result, TCF has recommended a new $40 billion federal investment—$4 billion allocated each year over the next ten years—to build better HBCU endowments.

Ensure that state and institutional aid gets to students of color—especially Black women in need. One of the many challenges to college affordability for Black women is inequities in how states and institutions allocate aid to students. Recent data from the National Postsecondary Student Aid Study, Administrative Collection analyzed by the Urban Institute58 sheds light on how states and institutions are allocating aid to students, and in some instances, the aid is not always getting to the student in need. There is a need for additional exploration into how state and institutional aid is distributed based on race. Identifying the barriers to accessing aid for Black and Latinx students, and specifically for Black women, is critical to breaking down the barriers to accessing higher education.

Reinvest in higher education at the state level. Since 2008, there has been a dramatic increase in the cost of attending college,59 while state support for higher education institutions has dramatically dwindled.60 Most public colleges and universities depend on state funding to sustain them, but they are not getting what they need, particularly HBCUs. The forty-two public HBCUs have, for many decades, been denied equitable funding at the state level. State legislatures should approve a significant increase in their investments in higher education, including much-needed funding for their HBCUs, which have chronically been overlooked. Funding for HBCUs should be at a rate commensurate with that of their flagship institutions to close the gap in funding. Increased funding would allow previously underfunded schools to bolster institutional aid to their students to help cover the full cost of college.

Create funding strategies for students in “public good” programs. Black students, particularly Black women students, are hyperconcentrated in programs that, after graduation, funnel into low-paying fields such as social service and public administration, often referred to as “public good” jobs.61 Furthermore, Black professionals are more likely to be employed in the public sector than in the usually higher-paying private sector.62 Innovative funding strategies could include providing additional funding to HBCUs to support students with research interests in psychology, social work, education, and the social sciences to help reduce their cost of education and/or debt burden after graduation. It could also include outcomes-based funding programs that reward institutions that admit a large number of low- and very-low-income students, support these students through completion and help them successfully move them up the income ladder. Outcome-based funding can also support the creation of a workforce pipeline for students interested in pursuing advanced degrees in high-social-value, low-wage professions, such as social work or education, where assistantships are less readily available. It can also be used to offer competitive need- and merit-based financial aid awards to increase recruitment and persistence among low-income and low-wealth students.

Provide a child care guarantee to give students the flexibility needed to persist. Many of the participants shared that their status as a parent or their child care responsibilities was a deciding factor that determined what school they attended. As noted above, Black women are more likely than their counterparts to be student parents, meaning that as they juggle academic work and tuition payments, many have the added burden of unaffordable child care costs.63 Improving access to child care would improve Black women’s access to and success in higher education. Moreover, the effects would be felt beyond higher education. In America today, more than two-thirds of children from birth through age 6 have all parents in the workforce (both coupled and solo parents).64 Now is the time for a child care guarantee. Investing in child care is inherently valuable to American families. Furthermore, these investments would significantly advance gender equity, bolster thriving communities, and energize the nation’s economy.

Looking Ahead

The policy recommendations listed above highlight the need to address the challenges Black women face when navigating the financial aid system and confronting other structural barriers to attaining a college degree. Only by pursuing a holistic approach—by not only making aid for Black women more robust and accessible and making debt repayment less burdensome, but also by reducing college costs and providing other programs of support—can policymakers hope to achieve a truly equitable system of higher education.

The next report in this three-part series will investigate the barriers that Black women encounter while trying to persist in a higher education system that was not designed with them in mind. Unfortunately the barriers to access that were evident over a century ago are still prevalent today, but yet Black women persist.

Notes

  1. Kandice Lofton, “Deep Dive: The State of the Student Debt Crisis for Black Women,” Student Borrower Protection Center, June 18, 2024, https://protectborrowers.org/deep-dive-black-women-and-the-student-debt-crisis/.
  2. Chabeli Carrazana and Jasmine Mithani, “How Student Loan Debt Has Fueled the Pay Gap for Black Women,” The 19th, July 27, 2023, https://19thnews.org/2023/07/student-loan-debt-pay-gap-black-women/.
  3. Peter Granville, “FAFSA Fallout: Application Dropoff Threatening to Widen College Gaps,” The Century Foundation, June 27, 2024, https://tcf.org/content/report/fafsa-fallout-application-dropoff-threatening-to-widen-college-gaps/.
  4. “Mary Jane Legacy Project,” https://www.blackgirloncampus.com/.
  5. To learn more about this collaboration, read the first report in the series, Denise A. Smith, “Centering Black Women’s Experiences Regarding College Choice,” The Century Foundation, September 11, 2024, https://tcf.org/content/report/centering-black-womens-experiences-regarding-college-choice/.
  6. Richard Greenfield and Ermasova Natalia, “Disinvestment in Higher Education and its Impact on Society: Case of Illinois Public Universities,” Public Organization Review 23, no. 4 (2023): 1311–332, https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11115-022-00649-2.
  7. Matt Aschenbrener, “Federal financial aid policy: Then, now, and in the future,” NASPA, March 10, 2016, https://www.naspa.org/blog/federal-financial-aid-policy-then-now-and-in-the-future.
  8. Nadra Nittle, “The Pell Grant Exists Because This Woman Lobbied for It,” The 19th, September 19,2022. https://19thnews.org/2022/09/pell-grant-financial-aid-lois-dickson-rice/.
  9.  Karen Grigsby Bates et al., “In 50 Years, the Pell Grant Has Helped over 80 Million People Go to College,” NPR, September 7, 2022, https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2022/09/01/1120655474/pell-grant-helps-poorest-attend-college.
  10. Peter Granville, “Parent PLUS Borrowers: The Hidden Casualties of the Student Debt Crisis,” The Century Foundation, May 31, 2022, https://tcf.org/content/report/parent-plus-borrowers-the-hidden-casualties-of-the-student-debt-crisis/.
  11. Asha DuMonthier, Chandra Childers, and Jessica Milli, “The Status of Black Women in the United States,” Institute for Women’s Policy Research and National Domestic Workers Alliance, June 26, 2017, https://iwpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/The-Status-of-Black-Women-6.26.17.pdf.
  12. Fast Facts: Women and Student Debt,” AAUW, https://www.aauw.org/resources/article/fast-facts-student-debt/.
  13. Ibid.
  14. Lindsey Cruse et al., “Parents in College: By The Numbers,” Institute for Women’s Policy Research, April 2019, https://iwpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/C481_Parents-in-College-By-the-Numbers-Aspen-Ascend-and-IWPR.pdf.
  15. Ibid.
  16. Victoria Jackson and Brittani Williams, “How Black Women Experience Student Debt,” Education Trust, April 7, 2022, https://edtrust.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/How-Black-Women-Experience-Student-Debt-April-2022.pdf.
  17. “Fast Facts,” National Center for Education Statistics, U.S. Department of Education,  accessed August 13, 2024, https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=372.
  18. Andre Nichols, “Segregation Forever?: The Continued Underrepresentation of Black and Latino Undergraduates at the Nation’s 101 Most Selective Public Colleges and Universities,” EdTrust, October 5, 2023, https://edtrust.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Segregation-Forever-The-Continued-Underrepresentation-of-Black-and-Latino-Undergraduates-at-the-Nations-101-Most-Selective-Public-Colleges-and-Universities-July-21-2020.pdf.
  19. Jalil B. Mustaffa and Jonathan C. W. Davis, “Jim Crow Debt: How Black Borrowers Experience Student Loans,” EdTrust, October 20, 2021, https://edtrust.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Jim-Crow-Debt_How-Black-Borrowers-Experience-Student-Loans_October-2021.pdf.
  20. Peter Granville and Tiara Moultrie, “How President Biden’s Student Debt Cancellation Plan Helps Parent Borrowers,” The Century Foundation, August 31, 2022, https://tcf.org/content/commentary/how-president-bidens-student-debt-cancellation-plan-helps-parent-borrowers/.
  21. Tiffany Jones, Victoria Jackson and Jaime Ramirez-Mendoza, “Borrowing While Black: Understanding What Makes Student Debt a Crisis for Black Students,” Liberal Education 106, no. 1–2 (2020).
  22. Owen Daugherty, “Difficulty, Lack of Support Cited as Biggest Obstacles for FAFSA Completion Among Low-Income Students, Survey Finds,” National Association of Student Financial Aid Adminsitrators, April 8, 2021, https://www.nasfaa.org/news-item/25251/Difficulty_Lack_of_Support_Cited_as_Biggest_Obstacles_for_FAFSA_Completion_Among_Low-Income_Students_Survey_Finds.
  23. Steven Bahr, Dinah Sparks and Kathleen Mulvaney Hoyer, “Stats in Brief: Why Didn’t Students Complete a Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA)? A Detailed Look,” U.S. Department of Education, December 2018, https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2018/2018061.pdf.
  24. Emma Curchin, “Student Loan Debt is Common Across All Race and Gender Groups, Especially for Black Women,” Center for Economic and Policy Research, January 10, 2024, https://www.cepr.net/student-loan-debt-is-common-across-all-race-and-gender-groups-especially-for-black-women/.
  25. Elizabeth Martin and Rachel Dwyer, “Financial Stress, Race and Student Debt during the Great Recession,” Social Currents 8, no. 5 (October 2021): 424–45, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10373449/pdf/nihms-1876434.pdf.
  26. Peter Granville, “Parent PLUS Borrowers: The Hidden Casualties of the Student Debt Crisis,” The Century Foundation, May 31, 2022, https://tcf.org/content/report/parent-plus-borrowers-the-hidden-casualties-of-the-student-debt-crisis/.
  27. “Talent Disrupted: College Graduates, Underemployment, and the Way Forward,” Burning Glass Institute and Strada Institute for the Future of Work, February 2024, https://stradaeducation.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Talent-Disrupted-2.pdf.
  28. “Black Women and the Pay Gap,” American Association of University Women, accessed August 20, 2024, https://www.aauw.org/resources/article/black-women-and-the-pay-gap/.
  29. “The Economic State of Black America: What Is and What Could Be,” McKinsey and Company, June 17, 2021, https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/diversity-and-inclusion/the-economic-state-of-black-america-what-is-and-what-could-be.
  30. Laura Sullivan, Tatjana Meschede, Thomas Shapiro, and Fernanda Escobar, “Stalling Dreams: How Student Debt Is Disrupting Life Chances and Widening the Racial Wealth Gap” Institute on Assets and Social Policy, September 2019, https://heller.brandeis.edu/iere/pdfs/racial-wealth-equity/racial-wealth-gap/stallingdreams-how-student-debt-is-disrupting-lifechances.pdf.
  31. Ibid.
  32. Victoria Jackson and Jalil Mustaffa, “How Income Driven Repayment Plans Fail Black Borrowers,” EdTrust, November 2022, https://edtrust.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Income-Driven-Repayment-Plans-Fail-Black-Borrowers-Novemeber-2022.pdf.
  33. Lindsey Cruse et al., “Parents in College: By The Numbers,” Institute for Women’s Policy Research, April 2019, https://iwpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/C481_Parents-in-College-By-the-Numbers-Aspen-Ascend-and-IWPR.pdf.
  34.  “College Employment and Student Performance,” University of Pennsylvania, October 2021, https://budgetmodel.wharton.upenn.edu/issues/2021/10/4/college-employment-and-student-performance.
  35. Tomás Monarrez and Jordan Matsudaira, “Trends in Federal Student Loans for Graduate School,” U.S. Department of Education, August 2023, https://sites.ed.gov/ous/files/2023/08/OCE_GraduateDebtReport202308.pdf.
  36. “Black Enrollments in Post-Pandemic Higher Education,” Journal of Blacks in Higher Education, January 2, 2023, https://jbhe.com/2023/01/black-enrollments-in-post-pandemic-higher-education/.
  37. Andrew Belasco, Michael Trivette, and Karen Webber, “Advanced Degrees of Debt: Analyzing the Patterns and Determinants of Graduate Student Borrowing,” Review of Higher Education 37, no. 4 (2014): 469–97, https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.724.3293&rep=rep1&type=pd.
  38. Erin Dunlop Velez and Ruth Heuer, “Exploring the Educational Experiences of Black and Hispanic PhDs in STEM,” RTI International, November 27, 2023, https://www.rti.org/sites/default/files/documents/2023-11/Exploring%20the%20Education%20Experiences%20of%20Black%20and%20Hispanic%20PhDs%20in%20STEM.pdf.
  39. “The Number of African American Doctorates Reaches an All-Time High,” Journal of Blacks in Higher Education, February 12, 2024, https://jbhe.com/2024/02/the-number-of-african-american-doctorates-reaches-an-all-time-high/.
  40. Danielle N. Bostick et al, “Exploring Black Graduate Women’s Perceptions of Student Loan Debt,” Journal of Diversity in Higher Education 15, no. 1(2022): 73–85, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/353783469_Exploring_Black_graduate_women’s_perceptions_of_student_loan_debt.
  41. “Fast Facts: Historically Black Colleges and Universities,” National Center for Education Statistics, U.S. Department of Education, accessed August 19, 2024, https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=667.
  42. Frankki Bevins, Kathryn Fox, Duwain Pinder, Jimmy Sarakatsannis, and Shelley Stewart, “How historically Black universities and colleges are drivers of U.S. growth,” McKinsey and Company, August 10, 2021, https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/08/mckinsey-report-highlights-importance-of-supporting-hbcus-in-the-united-states/.
  43. Karen Hamrick, “Women, Minorities, and Persons with Disabilities in Science and Engineering,” National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics (NCSES), Directorate for Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences, National Science Foundation, April 29, 2021, https://ncses.nsf.gov/pubs/nsf21321/report/executive-summary.
  44. “Fast Facts: Historically Black Colleges and Universities,” National Center for Education Statistics, U.S. Department of Education, accessed August 19, 2024, https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=667.
  45. Michael Mitchell, Michael Leachman, and Matt Saenz, “State Higher Education Funding Cuts Have Pushed Costs to Students, Worsened Inequality,” Center for Budget Priorities, October 24, 2019, https://www.cbpp.org/sites/default/files/atoms/files/10-24-19sfp.pdf.
  46. “State Higher Education Finance FY 2020,” State Higher Education Executive Officers Association, 2021, https://shef.sheeo.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/SHEEO_SHEF_FY20_Report.pdf.
  47. Peter Granville, “Parent PLUS Borrowers: The Hidden Casualties of the Student Debt Crisis,” The Century Foundation, May 31, 2022, https://tcf.org/content/report/parent-plus-borrowers-the-hidden-casualties-of-the-student-debt-crisis/.
  48. “Share of Families with Education Debt,” Tax Policy Center, November 23, 2020, https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/fiscal-fact/student-loan-debt-race-ff11232020.
  49. Ibid
  50. Mark Huelsman, “Debt to Society: The Case for Bold, Equitable Student Loan Cancellation and Reform,” Demos, June 6, 2019, https://www.demos.org/research/debt-to-society.
  51. Jocelyn Frye, “Rejecting Business as Usual: Improving Employment Outcomes and Economic Security for Black Women,” National Partnership for Women and Families, July 2023, https://nationalpartnership.org/report/improving-employment-outcomes-economic-security-for-black-women/.
  52. “Quicksand: Borrowers of Color & the Student Debt Crisis,” Center for Responsible Lending and NAACP, July 2019, https://www.responsiblelending.org/research-publication/quicksand-borrowers-color-student-debt-crisis.
  53. Peter Granville, “Parent PLUS Borrowers: The Hidden Casualties of the Student Debt Crisis,” The Century Foundation, May 31, 2022
  54. Kandice Lofton, “Deep Dive: The State of the Student Debt Crisis for Black Women,” Student Borrower Protection Center, June 18, 2024, https://protectborrowers.org/deep-dive-black-women-and-the-student-debt-crisis/.
  55. Ibid.
  56. Sarah Sattelmeyer, Tia Caldwell, and Sophie Nguyen, “Best Laid (Repayment) Plans,” New America, May 10, 2023, https://www.newamerica.org/education-policy/briefs/best-laid-repayment-plans/.
  57. Denise A. Smith, “Achieving Financial Equity for HBCUs,” The Century Foundation, September 14, 2021, https://tcf.org/content/report/achieving-financial-equity-justice-hbcus/.
  58. Sandy Baum, Kristin Blagg, Leonardo Restrepo, and Fanny Terrones, “Race, Ethnicity, and the Design of State Grant Aid Programs,” Urban Institute, February 9, 2023, https://www.urban.org/research/publication/race-ethnicity-and-design-state-grant-aid-programs-factsheet.
  59. Abigail Hess, “Tuition at public colleges has increased in all 50 states over the past 10 years—here’s how your state compares,” CNBC, October 24, 2019, https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/24/college-costs-have-increased-in-all-50-states-over-the-past-10-years.html.
  60. Krystal L. Williams and BreAnna L. Davis, “Public and Private Investments and Divestments in Historically Black Colleges and Universities,” American Council on Education, January 2019, https://www.acenet.edu/Documents/public-and-private-investments-and-divestments-in-hbcus.pdf.
  61. Anthony Carnavale et al., “African Americans: College Majors and Earnings,” Center on Education and the Workforce, https://cew.georgetown.edu/wp-content/uploads/AfricanAmericanMajors_2016_web.pdf.
  62. Valerie Wilson, Ethan Miller, and Melat Kassa, “Racial Representation in Professional Occupations by the Numbers,” Economic Policy Institute, June 8, 2021, https://www.epi.org/publication/racial-representation-prof-occ/.
  63. Lindsey Cruse et al., “Parents in College: By The Numbers,” Institute for Women’s Policy Research, April 2019, https://iwpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/C481_Parents-in-College-By-the-Numbers-Aspen-Ascend-and-IWPR.pdf.
  64. Laura Valle-Gutierrez, “Supporting Mothers Requires a Child Care Guarantee,” The Century Foundation, August 1, 2024, https://tcf.org/content/commentary/supporting-mothers-requires-a-child-care-guarantee/#easy-footnote-bottom-1-57851.

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