‘Significant’ student debt affects Texas’ minority college students disproportionately

‘Significant’ student debt affects Texas’ minority college students disproportionately

When Lily Huynh graduated from the University of Texas in 2019, she left campus with a degree in psychology and about $26,000 in student debt.

Even after working 20 hours a week during part of her time in school and occasionally having sleep for dinner, Huynh said she needed the loans to pay for rent and for expenses such as textbooks.

There’s no way I would have been able to go to college without taking out the loans that I had, Huynh said. Honestly, the only option I could have done to avoid this is to have gone to a different school.

Huynh’s experience is not uncommon. Texas college students had a significant amount of unmet financial need during fiscal 2020, and hundreds of thousands of students have accrued student loans to pay for college, according to a draft report by the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board.

The board, which oversees higher education in the state, plans to consider adopting the statewide report on student financial aid in higher education during its quarterly meeting on Thursday. The report provides an overview of financial aid provided to undergraduate and graduate students as well as the amount of student loan debt obtained by students in the state. Continuar leyendo «‘Significant’ student debt affects Texas’ minority college students disproportionately»