Tag: gender

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FEMALE-MALEGAPS

Females Face High Student Debt at Technical Schools

By Kirsten Baird
The Razorback Reporter

Female students who graduate from Bryan University, a technical school in Rogers, have an average of about $18,000 in student loans. This is $9,375 more than male graduates accrue, according to U.S. Department of Education student loan data from 2016-17.

Bryan has the largest gender gap in student loans in Arkansas, according to the College Scorecard, an Education Department database. An official at Bryan declined to comment. 

Furthermore, the data shows that this gap is almost $3,000 more than Lyon College, a private school with the second largest gender debt gap.

In contrast to technical schools, larger public universities such as the University of Arkansas have a gender debt gap of about $900, according to the College Scorecard student loan data.

The nature of technical schools differs from that of public universities in the sense that there are often fewer core classes and more hands-on experience related specifically to career training, according to the U.S. Department of Education. 

When comparing the percentage of males to females for Bryan and UofA, there is a difference in the cost and disbursement of money.

According to the 2016-17 U.S. News & World Report for Education, Bryan University is about 30% female and 70% male. The average scholarship awarded at Bryan is $5,145, according to the U.S. News, which is significantly less than the average amount of tuition per year. 

The UA Enrollment report shows that the University of Arkansas is 52% female and 48% male.

Interviews with female students at the U of A show the range of experiences in financing college. Mallorie Spielmaker, 19, from Fayetteville, Arkansas is a second-year special education major at the University of Arkansas. She said she has the Arkansas Academic Challenge scholarship and a leadership scholarship offered through the university. 

“This year it was $4,000 for the whole year,” Spielmaker said. “The leadership is $1,000 per semester.”

After one and a half years in school, Spielmaker has had to borrow $15,000 in student loans. “By the time I graduate, it will probably be closer to $25,000,” Spielmaker said. 

Another UA student, senior Chloe Shreve, 22, is a political science major who has had to borrow money to pay for school even though she received federal grants. Shreve had a scholarship in her freshman year called the Freshman Success scholarship, granted to students whose parents didn’t attend college.

Mallorie Spielmaker, UofA sophomore, has over $15,000 in student debt. Photo by Kirsten Baird

Even with the scholarship money, Shreve said she still had to borrow in order to pay for school.

“I am pretty sure I am going to be graduating with around $10,000, because I get a lot from FAFSA,” Shreve said. The total Shreve receives in Federal Pell Grants from the university is about $3,500 per year, she said. 

Additionally, the length of time in school could have an impact on the amount of student loan debt that a student accrues.

At Bryan, the program that most female students choose is the Business Administration and Management with an emphasis in spa management, which is one of the longest programs at the school, according to the Bryan University academic report. The length of time attending school can tend to lead to higher student borrowing. Generally speaking, females are enrolled in school for a longer period of time, according to the U.S. Department of Education.

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Gender_Inequities

Women Face Higher Student Loan Debt, Workplace Challenges


By Kirsten Baird, Coleman Bonner, Abby Zimmardi 
The Razorback Reporter

The average female student loan debt in Arkansas is $10,051, which is about $1,250 more than the average male student debt in 2016-17, according to a College Scorecard study, a U.S. Department of Education database.

Juliet Sittler, a UofA junior majoring in accounting, has around $19,000 in student loans from her first three years of college, she said. She intends on taking out more loans for graduate school and hopes to pay them off in less than five years. 

Sittler, 20, from Tulsa, Oklahoma, said she’s entering a field dominated by men. “I would say that I’m not the only female, but there are way more guys than girls in all my classes,” Sittler said. Enrollment in the Walton College of Business in 2017 was 64% male and 35% female, according to the UofA Student Degree, Enrollment and Demographics.


On top of the gender disparity in student loans, some female students are entering professions with a significant gender imbalance, and they may not be paid as much as their male counterparts.

According to the U.S. Department of Labor, the top male-dominated fields are civil engineering, which is 14% female; chemical engineering, 18% female; and electrical engineering, 9% female. In each of these fields, women earn only about 89% of what men do, according to a study by the Department of Labor. 

Summer Smith, a junior biomedical engineering student, said she is aware of her place as a minority within her field, yet she feels it could be used as an advantage.
 
“I think it’s kind of cool because you get a lot of different opportunities that women that are in a female-dominated field don’t have,” Smith, 20, from St. Louis said. “Since people are looking for women engineers, I think it really makes me stand out.” According to the UA Office of the Registrar, the engineering student body is 76% male and 24% female.

UA senior Katharine Jovicich, 23, from Dallas, who is majoring in chemical engineering, said she has acquired over $100,000 in student loan debt. Jovicich will be paying off her loans with no help from her family, besides living at home rent free, she said. 

“My goal is three years, but I think I could pay the minimum payment and it goes maybe 10-20 years,” Jovicich said. “But I just want to be out of it and so I will live very simply and still at home and get all of that paid off.”

The gender imbalance in engineering is obvious even to the men. “In school, engineering is definitely male-dominated. I’d say at least 80% male, and in certain disciplines it was even more so,” said Jeremey Porterfield, 32, from Bryant, Arkansas. “You feel it in the culture of the company.”

Portfield graduated from the UofA with a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering and was awarded about $4,000 in scholarships during his time on the Fayetteville campus. He currently works as a project manager for Garver Engineers, but is still paying off his $40,000 in student loans.