When she attended the University of Arkansas Pine Bluff to earn her bachelor’s degree in biology, one alumna racked up nearly $30,000 dollars in debt because her family was not poor enough to receive scholarships, or wealthy enough to pay her tuition. It was that debt, and her not receiving a job in her field, that made her pause when she went to get her masters and then doctoral degree. She went to college to get a good job, but that is not always the case.

Today Patricia Swinton, a teacher at Mills University Studies HIgh School and former English professor at Philander Smith College, is trying to earn her master’s degree at University of Arkansas at Little Rock, and has over $100,000 in student loan debt, she said.

“It’s just going to be another bill I’m going to have to pay monthly probably for the rest of my life,” Swinton said.

Arkansas has four historically black universities, Philander Smith College, the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff, Shorter College and Arkansas Baptist College, according to College Scorecard.

All four Arkansas historically black institutions and colleges have a higher median debt than the average $9,185, according to College Scorecard.

Because of this, students may have to borrow at higher rates at historically black universities than at other institutions, according to the UNCF report Fewer Resources, More Debt: Loan Debt Burdens Students at Historically Black Colleges and Universities.

Raven Cook, an educator at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art and the founder for Foundations: Black History Educational Programming, attended the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff briefly before transferring to the University of Arkansas Fayetteville to major in African American history, she said.

“It’s an honor to go to (a historically black college or university), but it’s also really expensive,” Cook said.
Historically black colleges and universities are institutions founded during the Jim Crow era, or during segregation. In 1896, separate institutions and facilities were created for African Americans under the Separate but Equal doctrine, Cook said.

Today, African American students attend historically black colleges and institutions to become more connected to black culture or to experience it for the first time along with receiving an education, Cook said.

“It’s a very rich environment to learn about being black,” Cook said. “And it’s the subtle things, like always speaking to a black professor as they’re walking up or down the side walk, going to classes and hearing the subtle integration of black history with what you’re learning. The buildings you walk into are even named after black people sometimes.”

Some African American students, like Cook, might choose predominately white institutions or other types of colleges over historically black colleges and institutions because their degree program might be more focused there, or they might have better access to jobs, Cook said.

Philander Smith College a private historically black college has the second highest first-generation student loan debt at $20,000, $500 less than Hendrix University a private liberal arts college which has the highest first-generation student loan debt, according to College Scorecard.

Philander Smith College also has the third highest median student loan debt in Arkansas at $19,000, and the highest median and first-generation student loan debt for all historically black universities, according to College Scorecard.

Philander Smith College may have the highest median and first-generation student loan debt because it has an open-door policy, where students that may have not taken the ACT can attend, Swinton said.

“A lot of the students that go are poor to medium income students that normally wouldn’t have had a chance to attend college if Philander didn’t reach out to them,” Swinton said.

First-generation and low-income students who are accepted then must take out loans to pay for their tuition because Philander Smith College is a private university, Swinton said.

On-campus students at Philander Smith College pay a direct cost, or what students usually pay to attend Philander Smith College, of $20,814 and off-campus students paying a direct cost of $12,564, according to Philander Smith College’s cost of attendance 2016-2017.

At the University of Arkansas Pine Bluff, sophomore Kabryn Williams expects to graduate with $20,000 in student loan debt. He is paying for college himself, and while he has scholarships it did not cover everything, which is why he took out student loans, he said.

While he is taking out loans to cover his tuition, he doesn’t think people should have to, Williams said.

“Everyone should get the opportunity to learn,” Williams said.

Nearly 64 percent of historically black colleges and university graduates borrowed over $20,000 in loans in comparison to 37 percent of non- historically black colleges and university students. Four-year historically black colleges and universities cost on average $21,707, less than four-year non-historically black colleges and university, which are on average $30,108, according to the UNCF report.

Shorter College is trying to educate students about student loan debt, said Bryan Neal a sophomore at Shorter College.

Neal is a general studies major at Shorter College, and is planning on going to either University of Arkansas Little Rock or University of Central Arkansas after he graduates to get a bachelor’s in economics and finance. When he is done, he expects to have $30,000 in student loan debt, $10,000 of which from Shorter College, he said.

Neal thinks Shorter College is more concerned about education and what its students can afford. The financial aid department visits classes and has an orientation about student loan debt, where faculty warns students about taking out more than they can afford, he said.

This is not always the case though, as former RA and Philander Smith College graduate Tarai Rolle noticed from his experience at Philander Smith College. While Rolle was an international student and could not take out student loans from the government, loans were the talk of the town especially when it came to students’ difficulties applying and receiving loans at Philander Smith College, he said.

This is not an uncommon problem among historically black colleges and universities. While he can only speak for Philander Smith College, many of his peers that attended historically black universities and colleges have come across the same issue with financial aid offices not educating students on how to properly apply and take out loans, or even when those loans have been taken out, he said.

This is because historically black colleges and universities are often smaller, with two to three people running a department that is trying to meet the needs of thousands of people. At Philander Smith College, where many students are on financial aid or are taking out loans, the financial aid department might be overloaded with work, Rolle said.

“I think is just overwhelming for them so they have to do their job as efficiently as they can and sometimes it’s just not done the best way,” Rolle said. “They just make sure they get the job done.”

Departments at historically black universities and colleges are typically not as large as predominately white institutions. Because of a lack of funding, grants and donations that larger institutions draw in historically black universities and colleges financial aid is its largest obstacle, Cook said.

“When I went to an (historically black college and university) I absolutely loved it, it was so much fun,” Cook said. “But I will say financial aid was a huge challenge for me, and I think there has to be a push on all levels to get students conscious of opportunities that they have.”
A way to decrease the amount of debt historically black colleges and universities and non- historically black colleges and universities is for federal policymakers to reshape federal student aid policies and programs to help students secure more resources, according to the UNCF report.

Cook thinks that politicians, and African American people, should invest more into education and historically black colleges and universities to make sure they stay alive. Efforts could also be made to find alternative housing for students that is more affordable to reduce tuition costs, and to give students a larger scope to live instead of just campus, she said.

“Every level has to have people committed to working to make sure HBCUs are really, really protected and valued as they should be because they are really special spaces that have kept us going for a long time,” Cook said.

Sources:

April Cartee – Bentonville Public School Teacher, found on LinkedIn
acartee@bentonvillek12.org

Shelby Banks- Connected through CCOA
Phone: 479-409-7581
Email: shelbybanks09@gmail.com

Molly Ballard- 3rd Grade Teacher (poverty school)

(479) 841-5042

Shelby Banks- Teacher (non poverty school)

Phone: 479-409-7581

Email: shelbybanks09@gmail.com

Jan Rogers- Special Needs Advisor at a Preschool

(479) 981-2377

Joel Doelger- Credit Counselor at CCOA

joeld@ccoacares.com

OVERVIEW
By Katie Beth Nichols

A post-secondary education is sold to Americans as a guaranteed path to success and eventual financial freedom, but for some, the cost is greater than they expect.

“My second year of college I went into my advisor’s office and I just had a mental breakdown,” Molly Ballard said. “I just started crying. I was so overwhelmed by all my jobs and school and finances all at the same time.”

Molly Ballard, now a teacher in Northwest Arkansas, had nearly $54,000 in student loan debt upon graduating from the University of Arkansas in 2012. Although Ballard’s amount of debt is abnormal, stories like these are not. Nearly 44 million people are contributing to the $1.5 trillion in debt crisis in the United States, according to data from the Federal Reserve. This number is second only to mortgage debt, passing credit card and auto loans, according to the Washington Post.

One in four people who go to college have to take out some form of student loans, according to CNN Money.

It is no question that student loans affect students and their lives during college and post-graduation. Some demographics are hit harder by the affects of student loan debt than others. For instance, women carry nearly two-thirds of the nation’s student loan debt, according to a study by the American Association of University Women.

African American graduates have a similar issue.

African American graduates have a 21 percent 12-year default rate. However, even white students that began college and dropped out have a lower 12-year default rate, at 18 percent, according to MarketWatch.

All of these trends are still true on a state-level. Arkansas graduates from historically black colleges or universities, in general, incur more student loans than those who go to other schools. Just as Arkansas women have more debt than Arkansas men.

However, Arkansas ranks quite low in comparison with each state’s amount of student debt. The national average for student loan debt in 2016 was $37,172. The average for Arkansans in 2016 was $26,800. Although this is below average, and certainly below states on the upper-end of the spectrum, Arkansas graduates still struggle with the burdens linked to student debt.

Molly Ballard made major sacrifices due to her student loans. Ballard had $54,000 in debt upon graduation. Her father was pursuing his Ph.D. at the same time that she was in school, so she was on her own when it came to finances.

Ballard said it was a special moment to graduate the same year as her father, but to both still be struggling with debt six years later, even though her father is a professor at the U of A, is difficult to handle.

“Luckily, my first year of undergrad was paid for through scholarships,” Ballard said.

However, the moment that first year ended, she immediately felt the burn of student debt. Ballard had four jobs during her time at the University of Arkansas. She worked at the Mount Sequoyah gift shop, in the U of A infant and toddler development center, UA parking and transit, Build A Bear Workshop in the mall. Ballard said she used this money to stay afloat during college, the majority of this money was not used for tuition and loan repayment.

Ballard pays $625 every month toward her student loan repayment. She said that she knew her payments would be high, but she didn’t realize how much it would affect her life and daily decisions. Her most recent sacrifice financially was not getting a new car when she needed one. “I ended up getting a $500 car just to get by,” Ballard said.

Some borrowers have student loan debt on a significantly smaller scale.

April Cartee, a 39-year old from Birmingham, Ala., is a sixth grade science teacher in the Bentonville Public School District. She has no student loan debt because her parents paid for her associate’s, bachelor’s and graduate education. Cartee says she is a lifelong learner, and has not stopped going to school.

Cartee is working on her counseling degree at Harding University. For this particular degree, Cartee has been taking one class per semester.

Cartee said she thinks it makes sense financially because she can pay for one credit of school on her credit card instead of taking a full load of classes and having to take on the burden of student loans.

“I feel like teaching is a field that people do more education for other professions,” Cartee said. “Everything within it that you want to do has some sort of certification attached to it.”

Cartee has never taken a loan out for school, she and her husband decided to put the expense on their credit card.

“We just pay for it in a timely manner and build up a lot of good credit,” Cartee said. “So we gained a lot of points on our credit card and use them for airline travel.”

Cartee is on a non-traditional graduation timeline, but she said that this is what works for her life right now.

“I would rather be doing more classes at a time, but now I’m mom and wife and teacher and friend, I’m just not at that point in my life anymore. I’ve done the full-time student thing. I’m just past that phase of life. Yes, it takes that much longer, but for me, what’s the rush?”

Jan Rogers graduated in 2001 and is still feeling the repercussions from her financial decisions that she made in college.

“If I were beginning college now, it would have impacted my career choice,” Rogers said. “But when I started college in ‘95, we didn’t really know a whole lot about all of that. I knew, going into social work, I wasn’t going to make a ton of money. I think being young and not having people in my family to tell me what I should and shouldn’t do financially, I didn’t really pay attention to that.”

Rogers’s parents did not attend college, but always emphasized the importance of a post-secondary education.

“It was just something that was expected of me,” Rogers said. “In my small town, there were barely any jobs anyway. So if you wanted to have a job at all, a good one or not, you had to have a degree of some sort.”

She said that in her town, women had an even harder time getting well-paying jobs.

She said that she thinks that her degree was worth the money, but she said that it is disheartening when she has friends and coworkers that did not attend college and are making the same amount as her and without having the added burden of student loan payments every month.

“I only pay $165 a month, which isn’t a lot, but if I applied that to my house payment every month, our house would be paid off by now,” Rogers said.

Shelby Banks, a northwest Arkansas school teacher, also had parents that did not attend college. Banks lived at home during her entire college education, including her masters and for one more year after graduation. However, even with these sacrifices being made, Banks graduated with $30,000 in student debt.

I have always lived a very low-key life financially,” Banks said.

Banks also started her college career at community college to save money on tuition costs. She said that her college experience was definitely affected by the fact that she was living at home.

Post-graduation, Banks decided to pursue credit counseling.

“More than anything I just needed it for the guidance,” Banks said. I just wanted someone who could tell me what all my options are and explain them to me so I can get the most bang for my buck.”

Joel Doelger, a counselor at Credit Counseling of Arkansas, said that people come to credit counseling for a multitude of reasons.

“They’re just stuck,” Doelger said. “They’re either spinning their wheels or they have their heads stuck in the sand because they just don’t know where to go.”

Doelger said that many people feel this way and are not adaquately prepared for the real cost of college.

Students who attend beauty schools in Arkansas graduate with a lot of debt. The median beauty school debt is $8,156.