During the COVID-19 pandemic, undergraduate enrollment dropped by nearly 10%. Yet those who are attending college are still shouldering a hefty financial burden. This issue brief examines a survey of 1,521 women in New York City to learn more about their experiences with student loan debt during the pandemic. The results indicate glaring…

The Postsecondary Value Framework sets wealth accumulation as a key indicator of postsecondary value. Postsecondary education's impact on wealth-building is especially salient for students of color, who tend to start a financial step behind their more privileged White counterparts due to the longstanding racial wealth gap. The racial wealth gaps…

Large gaps in cognition and language on the Bayley-III between the top and bottom household wealth quartiles in 1,330 children aged 6-42 months in a representative sample of low- and middle-income families in Bogota were previously shown. Maternal education and the home environment mediated these wealth effects, whereas height-for-age mediated a…

Prior research on trends in educational inequality has focused chiefly on changing gaps in educational attainment by family income or parental occupation. In contrast, this contribution provides the first assessment of trends in educational attainment by family wealth and suggests that we should be at least as much concerned about growing wealth…

The notion of individual freedom is valued by virtually all social, economic, and political belief systems. To be sure, how it is defined is heavily contested, it is never valued without limits (i.e., it is not an absolute value that trumps all other values), and it is less central to some moral and political philosophies than others. However it…

Research finds a weak causal relationship between student loan debt and homeownership. Still, less access to generational wealth among young Black adults is a root cause of higher student debt burden and a substantial barrier to accessing homeownership. The inability to repay debt, or to build wealth through homeownership, in turn, contributes to…

We examine how the racial wealth gap interacts with financial aid in American higher education to generate a disparate impact on college access and outcomes. Retirement savings and home equity are excluded from the formula used to estimate the amount a family can afford to pay. All else equal, omitting those assets mechanically increases the…

Parent PLUS loans are a growing concern due to their limited income-driven repayment protections and their potential to maintain longstanding racial wealth gaps. Previous research has examined factors associated with student debt burdens of college graduates, but no research has examined factors related to parent borrowing for college. In this…

This report compiles the research on racial disparities both in the use of student debt and in higher education outcomes, specifically focusing on disparities between white students and Black students. In order to do so, the authors bring together two streams of research that are often siloed: research from experts on higher education access and…

In August, the Biden administration announced a plan to forgive up to $10,000 in federal student loans for almost all borrowers, with up to an extra $10,000 for borrowers who had received Pell grants. The additional forgiveness for Pell borrowers intends to address the racial wealth gap, as Black and Hispanic students are more likely to receive…

Today's public discourse is dominated by the disempowering narrative that a black person can do nothing individually to close the racial wealth gap. And yet, there are decisions within the control of black kids--and children of all races--that can increase their likelihood to achieve improved economic outcomes. We have a moral imperative to…

Steps taken to address racial inequality in the private sector and higher education are not always altruistic. This brief examines the economic impact of having a representative workforce, focusing on the state of North Carolina (NC). It discusses the importance of successful education programming designed to address issues related to Black,…

Past work suggests that children have an overly rosy view of rich people that stays consistent across childhood. However, adults do not show explicit pro-rich biases and even hold negative stereotypes against the rich (e.g., thinking that rich people are cold and greedy). When does this developmental shift occur, and when do children develop more…

When the COVID-19 pandemic plunged the economy back into recession in early 2020, it laid bare a fragile and profoundly inequitable labor market. The economic expansion that reigned from 2009 through 2019 brought historically low unemployment and inflation but failed to reduce income inequality or arrest the decline in the number of high-quality,…

The number of Black students in science, engineering, and medicine in the United States has remained disproportionately low over the past several decades. A number of reasons have been identified as contributing to these low numbers, including those related to finances. Financial considerations range from the most immediate - the ability of…