A new study purports to show that student loan debt is racist, because areas with higher concentrations of minorities have higher levels of debt.
As with any study claiming that correlation equals oppression, this one has some flaws. One big one, in fact. The bigger reason minorities have more student loan delinquency, which the study’s authors even acknowledge, is that more of them choose lower-paying majors. For example, according to the linked chart from Georgetown University, the field with the second-largest concentration of black majors is Human Services/Community Organization. It may be a noble calling — it’s something President Obama believed in — but it’s also the major that promises the second-lowest payday of all the majors black students tend to choose. Also ranking near the top: Sociology, social work, public administration, and interdisciplinary social sciences — all fine things to study, but none of them promise especially high-paying careers.
Choice of field is one of the leading causes of the gender wage gap as well. Women dominate nine of the top 10 lowest-paying fields while men dominate nine of the top-10 highest-paying fields.
Now, activists like to claim that society forces women (and presumably, minorities) into these lower-paying fields. Perhaps that is part of the reason, but it seems pretty condescending to suggest that women or racial minorities are too dumb to make the decisions they view as best for themselves.
There’s nothing wrong with someone selecting the major and field they’re interested in, even if the career that comes from that doesn’t make them as much money as if they had gone into banking or technology.
Yet here we are, yet again, with a study ignoring the choices people make in favor of “proving” systemic institutionalized oppression.
The researchers involved in the student loan delinquency study wrote: “The fact that, among minorities, the middle class is most strongly affected implies the problem is structural racism, not poverty. Any solution to the student debt crisis has to recognize that.”
No, it doesn’t. Solutions for the student debt crisis would have to focus on pushing students into different fields, or at least discouraging them from choosing certain ones. Failing that, the solution would be to just let elitists decide what careers each person should take.
Let’s look at the flip side of all of this, as a thought experiment. Perhaps women and minorities feel more free to follow their real dreams and pursue the careers they’re interested in, while young, white males are pressured into careers based on how much money they’ll make. Maybe that isn’t fair.
Ashe Schow is a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner.
