Giving Compass' Take:

• Allana Akhtar and Hillary Hoffower give 9 mind-blowing statistics about the student-debt crisis' impact on black borrowers as compared to white students.

• How can funders best help students avoid and escape debt? What are the macroeconomic implications of the student debt crisis? 

• Here's how black philanthropy could help solve the black student debt crisis. 


People across the country are sacrificing gas and healthcare to pay off the record $1.5 trillion student loan debt — and black borrowers in particular are hurting the most.

Black students are not only more likely to need to take on debt for school, graduates are also nearly five times as likely to default on their loans than their white peers.

The racial gap between black and white student borrowers has prompted presidential hopefuls to address the issue: Elizabeth Warren's initiative would wipe all student debt for 75% of US borrowers, and Bernie Sanders has called to would eliminate all such debt.

  1. 86.6% of black students borrow federal loans to attend four-year colleges, compared to 59.9% of white students.
  2. Even well-off black students carry more student-loan debt.
  3. An average black graduate has $7,400 more in student debt than his or her white peer.
  4. Black student-loan borrowers default on their loans at five times the rate of white graduates.
  5. Graduates of historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) take on 32% more debt than their peers at other colleges.
  6. Eliminating student-loan debt would narrow the racial wealth gap for young families.
  7. White borrowers pay down their education debt at a rate of 10% a year, compared with 4% for black borrowers.
  8. Black graduates earn less money out of college, making it harder to pay off their loans.
  9. Black students are more likely to borrow more to go to graduate school.

Read the full article about facts on the student-debt crisis and black students by Allana Akhtar and Hillary Hoffower at Business Insider.