Female doctorate recipients were more likely to have student loans to pay off, and they accumulated more student-loan debt, on average, than did their male counterparts at every level of higher education. The gender gap was overshadowed by racial disparities. Black recipients of doctorates were far more likely to have student-loan debt, and owed far more than did their counterparts in other racial and ethnic groups. African-Americans’ cumulative undergraduate and graduate debt was more than four and a half times that of Asians and more than twice that of whites. Among all doctorate recipients, those in the field of education had the greatest education-related debt. The average amount was four times that of their counterparts in mathematics and computer science, who owed the least.
Note: Debt was tallied by asking recipients to choose a debt range, presented in increments of $10,000, from “no debt” to "$90,001 or more.” To estimate overall debt, the midpoints of each range for undergraduate and graduate debt were selected and added together to yield a total debt amount. All valid responses, including “no debt,” which was assigned a value of $0, were used to compute average debt levels. Those in the uppermost range were assigned a value of $95,000. Only education-related debt is reported. “Life sciences” includes agricultural sciences and natural resources, biological and biomedical sciences, and health sciences. “Other” includes nonscience and nonengineering fields not shown elsewhere. People who identified themselves as Hispanic may be of any race. Asians do not include Native Hawaiians or other Pacific Islanders. Data for doctorate recipients of “other race or race not reported” (which includes Native Hawaiians and other Pacific Islanders) and “ethnicity not reported” were excluded from this table. A dash indicates that data were suppressed to protect privacy. More data can be found here. Questions or comments on the Almanac should be sent to Ruth Hammond.
Source: National Science Foundation, National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics, Survey of Earned Doctorates
To purchase a copy of the Almanac in print or as a downloadable interactive PDF, visit the Chronicle Store.
<hr/>
