Report Highlights. Women and nonbinary borrowers are the most likely to carry large amounts of debt; male graduates are most likely to pay off their loans faster.
- 60.3% of all student loan debt belongs to women; the average student debt for women in the U.S. is $31,276.
- Women have a median annual salary of $66,640 after graduation, which is 82.1% of what men can expect to earn following graduation.
- The average monthly student debt repayment among women is $307, representing nearly 13.4% of their monthly expenses excluding childcare.
- Black women have the highest level of student debt following college graduation at $41,466, compared to women in white, Hispanic, and Asian populations.
- Student borrowers who identify as a gender minority have an average of $1,800 less in federal student loan debt than those who do not identify as such.
Related reports include Student Loan Debt Statistics | by State | by Race | by Age | Average Law School Debt | Average Medical School Debt | Student Loan Refinancing
This report conforms to the terminology used in raw data, which can vary significantly from source to source. Male (or man) and female (or woman) may refer to sex or gender identities while cis-male and cis-female describe male-born males and female-born females respectively. Many official data collection programs use the terms “sex” and “gender” interchangeably. Inclusive data sets often do not have enough respondents from minority groups (i.e., transgender, nonbinary, etc.) to be considered representative.
Student Loan Debt by Sex or Gender
Between men and women, women are more likely to take on more debt and to stay in debt longer.
- Parents of female students are more likely to take out federal loans on their behalf.
- Among associate’s degree holders, 35.6% of males, 41.3% of females, and 33.7% of non-binary students received student loans.
- 51.9% of bachelor’s degree-holding males received federal loans while 12.7% received Parent PLUS loans.
- 64.7% of female bachelor’s degree holders obtained federal loans, and 13.4% received Parent PLUS loans.
- 51.6% of non-binary bachelor’s degree holders obtained federal loans, and 21.2% received Parent PLUS loans.
- Male student borrowers tend to graduate with less student loan debt than their female peers.
- Among male graduates from 2011-12, Black or African American borrowers had the highest average undergraduate student debt at $25,336, exceeding the average debt of white, Hispanic, and Asian male graduates.
- On average, women borrow 21.7% more than men each year for Master’s programs.
- Professional doctorate programs are the only degree level at which men borrow more in student loans than women.
Student Loan Payments by Sex
One reason a borrower’s loan debt may grow over time is they are not making monthly payments large enough to cover accumulated interest.
- 12 years after college graduation, white men have paid off up to 44% of their student loan debt, while white women have only paid off up to 28%.
- Black women see their student loan debt increase due to additional incurred costs (such as interest) up to 13% over 12 years, compared to Black men who see 11% more debt on average.
- Women in loan repayment are 41.7% more likely than men to report financial difficulties.
- Women are more likely than men to borrow federal student loans, borrow larger amounts, and take longer to repay their loans.
- A higher percentage of women borrow private student loans compared to men.
Student Loan Debt Among Women
Women owe a disproportionately high amount of the total student loan debt. Women are also more likely to have high amounts of debt than men. Some of this is likely due to the fact that female bachelor’s degree holders are paid 81% of what their male peers make.
- Female students are more likely to obtain student loans for themselves.
- $929 billion in student loan debt belongs to women.
- Women hold nearly 60.3% of all student loan debt.
- During 2019-2020, 49% of women undergraduates took out student loans, compared to 42% of male undergraduates.
- Women take an average of two years longer than men to repay their student loans.
- Black women have the highest average amount of cumulative undergraduate and graduate student loan debt one year after graduation.
- Asian women have the lowest average amount of cumulative undergraduate student loan debt one year after graduation.
- White women have the lowest average amount of cumulative graduate student loan debt one year after graduation.
Student Loan Debt Beyond the Gender Binary
A low relative population makes it difficult to derive meaningful statistics regarding transgender, non-binary, and students with other gender identities; 1.8% of bachelor’s degree holders of the 2015-2016 cohort identify as a gender minority.
What little data is available indicates that gender-variant student borrowers face policy-related obstacles that cis-male and cis-female students do not face. This includes difficulties with identity verification in cases of official sex or name changes.
- LGBTQ+ adults ages 18 to 40 are 52.6% more likely to have federal student loans than non-LGBTQ+ adults.
- Transgender adults ages 18 to 40 are 2.2 times more likely than their cisgender non-LGBQ peers to have federal student loan debt.
- The average gender minority student borrows 4.36% less than the average non-gender minority student.
- Nonbinary undergraduate students borrow 5.06% less annually than male students and 3.23% less than female students.
- LGBTQ+ adults under 40 hold an average of $34,000 in federal student loan debt.
- Gender minority students were more likely than non-gender minority students to have cumulative student loan debt of less than $40,000
- Gender minority student borrowers are more likely to have lower monthly student loans payments than borrowers who are not of gender minorities.
Student Loan Debt Impact by Sex & Gender
Source data for this section uses the terms “male” and “female” to refer to respondents who identify as their biological sex (at birth). “Gender minority” refers to all other gender identities.
- Four years after earning a bachelor’s degree, 31.2% of female graduates, 30.2% of male graduates, and 18.4% of gender minority graduates own a home.
- 75.0% of male degree holders have retirement accounts.
- 73.2% of females and 62.6% of gender minority bachelor’s degree holders have retirement accounts.
- Females are 21.0% more likely than males to report a negative net worth.
- Gender minority degree holders are 44.4% more likely than those who are not of gender minority status to report a negative net worth.