Female college students across Arkansas are facing higher levels of debt than their male counterparts, according to data collected by College Scorecard.

            Amongst the top universities with the greatest disparity in female versus male loan debt is Lyon College. On average, female students at Lyon have $8,250 more debt than their male classmate, making it the college with the second largest gap in Arkansas.

            Lyon College financial aid director Tommy Tucker said he isn’t quite sure why the gap is so large.

            “In my experience speaking with the students, I would not have expected to see a gap like that,” Tucker said. “Most of our female students have higher academic records, which would lead me to believe they’d be eligible for more scholarships which would lower their debt.”

            This problem isn’t just specific to Lyon though, 40 Arkansas colleges have female students with higher debt, including the University of Arkansas.

            “I think a lot of things could contribute to higher debt for female students, though things like this are usually very case specific,” said Denise Burford, the Associate Director of Financial Aid University of Arkansas.

            “We have a lot of male students involved in work studies, as well as full-time internships while they are part-time students,” said Burford. “This can really help students contribute financially to their loans as they go through school.”

            Lisa Corrigan, the gender studies program coordinator at the University of Arkansas, said part of the reason women have more college loan debt has to do with how they are enlisted for degrees.

            “Predatory lending is gendered,” Corrigan said. “Women get recruited for for-profit degrees at higher rates than men.”

            Corrigan went on to explain that this is particularly problematic for women of color, who sometimes get scammed into getting degrees from unaccredited programs and then become not hirable.

            Corrigan also attributed the higher debt for women to the “leaky pipeline,” a term in gender studies literature that refers to women who begin college or career paths and drop out half way through said paths.

            “We see the leaky pipeline in Arkansas higher education for a lot of reasons,” Corrigan said. “Some of its financial-the burden of loans, but it’s also social support. There aren’t strong family leave policies so women who have children aren’t supported and they have a hard time graduating, which leads to a lot of that debt.”

            Corrigan said that this trend in debt connects to a bigger problem in higher education- equality in accessibility of funding. She said she believes that in the next five years the Department of Education will be abolished, leaving colleges with only privatized funding.

            “This is a very brutal political movement that we are about to enter,” Corrigan said. “Women will have access to higher education, but it will be extremely limited and it will be overwhelmingly white.”

            These high levels of debt are not just a concern for women in the future, however. Lyon College Freshman Peyton Groves said she is overwhelmed by the debt she is in after not even a full semester at the school.

            “It’s incredibly disappointing that a university that emphasizes equality can have such a glaring gap in debt and that they don’t seem to care, “Groves said.

            Groves does not plan to return to the school next semester, as she said she can no longer afford to pay to go there.

            “The opportunities provided do not outweigh the cost by any means.”

Contacts

Tommy Tucker- Financial Aid Director Lyon College- (870) 307-7257

Denise Burford -Associate Director of Financial Aid University of Arkansas- (479)575-6965

Lisa Corrigan-Gender Studies Program Coordinator- (479)575-3046

Peyton Groves- Lyon College freshman- (469)509-8448

Is there a Pink Tax on Student Loan Debt?

The data taken from College Score Card shows that there is an elevated pattern for women’s student loan debt versus their male counterpart, especially at Bryan university where it leads as the most for females in the state of Arkansas. By furthering the research and breaking down the key components as to why one gender has a higher student loan debt rate, students can have a better understanding for the fundamental infrastructure of the student loan debt crisis.

Due to the certain demographics this research will help to divine whether there is a raised requisite for loans. By exploring the inflated interest rates and rate of defaulting loans by demographics, the object of this is to define and understand why some student loan companies appraise more students than others. Thus, the underlying question is, is there such a thing as a “Pink Tax” or a “Pink Interest Rate” for female student loan default and/or debts?

Bryan University had the highest rate for female student loan debt and defaults and should also be noted as a private institution. According to the debt findings from College Score Card and Student Loan Hero, about 75 percent of students who graduated from private nonprofit colleges had an average loan debt of $32,300. Whereas, 88 percent of graduates from for-profit colleges had loans on an average debt of $39,950.

Senior Financial aid analyst for Bryan university, Roe Ontizeros’ job is to help students at the university deal with their student loans and financial accounts with the school. “I’m not really supposed to talk with you about our student loan debt but I suggest you look up our data online because we do have to report a specific amount of our information for reference,” Ontizeros said.

Due to privacy laws about student’s financial aid, financial aid analysts with universities do not have the ability to openly discuss the data unless it is already open to the public through databases funded by the federal government.

Financial Aid Analystfor the University of Arkansas, Chelsea Smythedescribes what she knows about the university’s student loan debt. “I actually don’t really know a lot about our school’s student loan debt disparity precisely for the men and women at our school off the top of my head, but I do know that we don’t have the most loan debt in Arkansas,”Smythe said.

Women carry nearly two-thirds of the country’s outstanding student loan debt, according to a new report by the American Association of University Women, an education advocacy group titled, “Deeper in Debt: Women and Student Loans.” This study recognizes why certain demographics are targeted for higher loan interest rates above others.

Illuminating the details as to why loan companies target women so much, Lisa Corrigan, director at the University of Arkansas’ Gender Studies Program, explains.

“Predatory lending is gendered. Women are recruited for for-profit degrees at higher rates than men, where they also default on their loans at a higher rate,” Corrigan said. “So, there are several parts to that matter. That they are recruited, that they have higher interest rates, and that they default. That’s particularly problematic for women of color, who are getting scammed into degrees with unaccredited programs or programs that have massive class action law suits because the students are not graduating or are not employable or that the programs collapse.

So, yes, women are defaulting on loans that have higher interest rates, they’re doing it faster and for more money, but it’s particularly worse for women of color,” Corrigan said.

This data reveals an ongoing standard that women are paying significantly more than men as reflected with the term “Pink Tax” where women pay more in common material goods than men.

“I don’t know that it is theoretically wise to put debt itself into that. I think it’s useful to put them in conversation about the ways in which women are forced to pay more for services in goods that they’re entitled to and or that they need. But I don’t know that it is savvy to put it in the same category as consumer or tangible material goods. I think we want to make a difference because it is a service that the government is providing like higher education,” Corrigan said.

Corrigan also said that data will eventually show that women of color are going to see a decrease in attendance at accredited universities.

“I think that higher education is collapsing. So eventually women are not going to get the chance to go to college. I think you’re probably the last generation of women who are going to have, what we might consider as wide access to education. And that’s a result of the fact that the federal government pulled massive funding away from higher education during the ‘07 to ‘08 economic collapse under George W. Bush. And the states followed suit and under-invested in higher education,” Corrigan said.

But Corrigan also thinks that specific demographics will not be affected by this restructuring. “White wealthy women will always have access to education. They’ve always had and always will. They’ll find a way, they will structure it into privilege and so they will always have access. The entire political moment is restructuring power away from women of color, poor women of color and certainly LGBTQ+ people and it will hit extremely hard,” Corrigan said.

Offering advice for what could be described as the next steps for people spreading awareness about the student loan crisis, Corrigan said, “I would say to start with the white women because that’s your wheelhouse. Democracy is only as strong as its weakest member. So, if you want a strong and healthy community and you want strong and healthy families and you want a strong and healthy life then that means everyone in that community needs to be strong and healthy.

You can’t be punitive. Crime is the product of poverty. So, if you don’t want crime and you want healthy and safe communities, you have to support everyone in that community and that’s not always going to happen in jobs and wages because of the privatization,” Corrigan said. “It’s the politics of cruelty and that’s going to last.”

Contact List:

Senior Financial aid analysts for Bryan University, Roe Ontizeros–

Phone: (602) 384-2555

Email: financialaid@bryanuniversity.edu

Gender Studies Program Director, Lisa Corrigan–

Phone: 479-575-3046

Email: lcorriga@uark.edu

Financial Aid Analyst,Chelsea Smythe–

Phone: 479-575-3806

Email: csmythe@uark.edu

Financial Aid Analyst, Jeremy Hodges–

Email: jmh020@uark.edu

Phone: 479-575-8644

Women at religious colleges in Arkansas were less likely to have begun repaying their loans five years after graduation than their male counterparts, according to federal student loan data.

From 51 Arkansas colleges that reported loan repayment rates after five years, three out of the top five colleges where men were more likely to repay their loans than women had religious ties, according to College Scorecard data.

The College Scorecard is a database compiled by the U.S. Department of Education that records data about universities, including the percentage of students that had paid at least $1 on their student loans after five years.

Williams Baptist College had the largest disparity between male and female repayment rates, with 15 percent more male graduates making payments on their student loans than female graduates, according to College Scorecard.

At Williams Baptist College, 71 percent of male graduates began making payments on their student loans within five years or taking them out, compared to 56 percent of female students in that same time.

The Financial Aid department at Williams Baptist College does not report loan repayment info to the Department of Education, said Barbara Turner, director of Financial Aid.

“Once the students leave us we don’t track their information anymore,” Turner said.

Turner is not required to report male and female debt statistics separately in her federal report, she said.

“We usually only report average loan debt to the Department of Education,” Turner said.

Turner thinks that the College Scorecard got their information on student debt repayment form the companies that issued the loans, she said.

Williams Baptist College is owned and operated by the Arkansas Baptist State Convention, according to the Williams Baptist College website.

Women graduates at Central Baptist College, the university with the second highest gap between the genders, were 14 percent less likely to have begun repaying their loans after five years, according to College Scorecard.

Just under 70 percent of male students had begun repaying their loans while 56 percent of females had.

The director of Financial Aid at Central Baptist College was not available for comment.
Central Baptist College is owned and operated by the Baptist Missionary Association of Arkansas, according to the Central Baptist College website.

Baptist Health College rounded out the top five highest disparities, with 6.4 percent more male graduates repaying their loans than female graduates.

At Baptist Health, just under 64 percent of female graduates have begun repaying their loans after five years, compared to just over 70 percent of male graduates, according to College Scorecard.

Natalie Martin, Financial Aid Director at Baptist Health College, did not provide a comment after an initial phone conversation.

Baptist Health College places an emphasis on Christian values, according to a statement from Chancellor Judy Ingram Pile found on the Baptist Health College website.

John Brown University, a private Christian university, was ranked sixth highest for repayment gender disparity, with just over five percent more males able to make payments on their loans than females, according to College Scorecard.

At John Brown University, nearly 82 percent of male graduates had made payments on their loans after five years, compared to 76.5 percent of female graduates.

Gina Pace, assistant director of Financial Aid and Student Loan Specialist at John Brown University, does not think that the school tracks loan repayment data for students, she said.

Graduating students take an online course provided by the Department of Education that offers some counseling on loan repayment, as well as meeting with a financial aid official from JBU their last year, Pace said.

“Before the students leave campus, we do a meeting with on-campus undergrads and talk about repayment,” Pace said. “We encourage them to pay off their loans in two years or less, if they possibly can.”

Pace thinks that most students should be able to repay their loans in two years or less, she said.

“I know we’ve had a pretty good success rate,” Pace said.

The average female student at JBU graduates with $18,650 of loan debt, while the average male graduates with slightly more, $18,750, according to College Scorecard.

Graduates would have to pay approximately $777 each month to pay off their loans within two years.

Contacts:
Barbara Turner, director of Financial Aid at Williams Baptist University
870-759-4112, bturner@wbcoll.edu

Natalie Martin, Financial Aid Director, Baptist Health College Little Rock
501-202-7486, 501-202-7457, financialaid@bhclr.edu (no direct email available)
– Called, talked for a moment, asked to call me back, never returned my call.
Gina Pace, assistant director of Financial Aid and Student Loan Specialist at John Brown University
479-524-7162, GPace@jbu.edu

Katie Beth Nichols
First-Generation Financial Burdens
Sources:

Miguel Arguigo – first generation student
479-387-1724
mearguji@uark.edu

Alexus Bailey – First Generation Student
479-283-0774
ab050@uark.edu

Jana Rucker
jlrucker@harding.edu
501-279-4316

First-generation college students attending Arkansas schools accumulate almost one thousand dollars more in student loan debt than non-first-generation students, according to data from the Department of Education.

Specifically, first generation students pay more at public and private, nonprofit institutions. At public universities, first generation students pay a median amount of $6,969. This contrasts with the public non first generation students that pay $6,022. The same relationship goes for private nonprofit students: first generation students pay $12,188 and non first generation students pay $10,543. Students attending private, for-profit universities have a different relationship. Non-first-generation students pay slightly more, $8,736, and first generation students pay $8,531.

UA junior Alexus Bailey has experienced the financial gap firsthand. As a first-generation college student, she felt like she was left in the dark about scholarship opportunities.

“I felt like I had to work twice has hard to get anything academically,” Bailey said. “People always tell me to just get scholarships for school, but it’s not as simple as people make it seem.”

Bailey also said that she “broke the chain” of not attending college in her family, but that she feels a lot of pressure for her to succeed, and finances can get in the way of that success.

“I had to take out student loans in order for me to come here,” Bailey said. “I just feel like they don’t offer scholarships for people who are the first ones in their family to go to college.”

UA student Miguel Arguijo is also a first-generation college student. He has scholarship money to completely cover his tuition from the U of A.

“The way I got my scholarship they just found me, I guess,” Arguijo said. It was kind of weird because the College of Engineering just sent me a letter asking if I wanted an interview for the program. I got through the interview and that’s how I got a first-generation scholarship.”

“I’ve been very lucky,” Arguijo said.

“Jumping into the university, I didn’t know what was going on didn’t have anybody to rely on. It was like going in blind.” Arguijo said.

To combat the financial and social burdens that first-generation students face, the University of Arkansas has started a first-generation mentoring program. Both Bailey and Arguijo are involved with the program.

“Having a mentor has given me someone I can talk to,” Bailey said. “I feel alone sometimes because I can’t just go talk to my mom and dad about what’s going on. They just don’t fully understand what I’m going through.”

These same social and financial burdens are true at private, non-profit institutions such as Harding University. Jana Rucker, Vice President of communications at Harding University, was also a first-generation college student. Rucker said that Harding recently launched a program for first-generation students as well. According to a study done by Youth.gov, having a mentor can greatly impact the mentor and the mentee in a positive way.