The Commodification of Education and Its Impact on Black Women

• In Event: Moscone Center North Roundtable Session 1
  In Roundtable Session: Racialization, Silence, and Commodified Bodies: Policy and Discourse in Context

Abstract

For many Black women, student loans have allowed for greater access to higher education than ever before. However social mobility is hampered by “black students' higher loan amounts, the large number of black students who borrow but do not finish college, and the large racial difference in the odds of defaulting on a loan” (Jackson and Reynolds, 2013). This paper makes two assumptions about the potential impact of student debt on Black women and families; first, the student debt issue is gendered and racial, second, the effects neoliberalism and the commodification of higher education has reshaped the meaning of higher education for Black women in ways that have become financially harmful.

Author

• Tiffany S Bumpers, University of Illinois at Chicago