According to a new nationwide study, women were found to benefit more from student loans for higher studies than men.
Findings from a new study suggest student loans are more beneficial for women than man. It was once thought that loans were a sure shot way of getting a person to graduate. However, with time, the method has become less effective and there is lesser guarantee of a student completing his or her graduation nowadays. This is more common with men than women.
One of the chief reasons for this researchers say is because job prospects for college dropouts are better for men than women. Hence, a woman is bound to complete her studies in order to get a proper job and pay back the loan.
"At least early in their careers, women suffer more than men if they don't have a college degree," said Rachel Dwyer, co-author of the study and associate professor of sociology at Ohio State University. "Women will go deeper in debt to finance college because they need the degree more than men if they want to earn a good living. Men will drop out at lower levels of debt."
The study was conducted by Dwyer in collaboration with Randy Hodson, professor of sociology at Ohio State University and Laura McCloud, assistant professor of sociology at Pacific Lutheran University.
The study analysed data of 3,676 young Americans who participated in the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997. The NLSY97 interviewed people between the ages of 13 and 17 in 1997 and held regular interviews with them till 2010-11. By the end of this study the young adults were 25 to 31 years old.
Researchers of the study examined student loans taken out each year the participants were enrolled in college, and how much they still owed overall on their loans. Women were more likely to take out loans than men with 40 percent of women and 34 percent of men taking out loans on average each year.
"Clearly, educational debt was part of the college experience for many students in the 2000s," Dwyer said.
It was found that men who dropped out from college earned just as much as a graduate male during the early stages of their career. However, women who dropped out of college earn approximately $6,500 less a year than graduate women.
"Men may drop out at lower levels of debt than women because they have better job prospects than women do without a college degree," Dwyer said.
These findings appeared in the February 2013 issue of the journal Gender & Society.
