When Clint Myrick graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee in 2010, he left with two consequential pieces of paper: a diploma for a bachelor’s degree in music education — and an eye-popping student loan bill. The Milwaukee native was one of the first in his family to attend college, and Myrick said he entered with little knowledge of how to pay for it. “I was totally unprepared,” Myrick said. “I didn’t know how much it cost … I kind of had to figure out everything on my own.” Myrick held a number of jobs during college to help pay the bills, from working at a flower shop to running a cash register at the UW-Milwaukee student union. He earned about $6 an hour, and student loans allowed him to pay for school. Do you have feedback on Milwaukee NNS's reporting? Take our survey to let us know how we're doing! Over a decade later, Myrick’s student loan debt has only ballooned, even after years of payments. Interest has pushed the debt to $152,039, the highest it has ever been. The husband and father of three works multiple jobs to service the debt. He spends an extra 20 to 30 hours a week as an Uber driver outside of his full-time job for a bank and duties as president for the Milwaukee chapter of the Black fraternity he belonged to in college, Alpha Phi Alpha. Myrick is not alone in this struggle. In Wisconsin, about 710,000 people owe an estimated $24.4 billion in federal student loan debt, with the median debt at $17,323, according to Gov. Tony Evers’ 2020 task force on student loan debt. Nationally, the toll of crippling levels of student debt on tens of millions of Americans has prompted some calls for wide-ranging loan forgiveness. That burden weighs on students unevenly. According to EducationData.org, Black and African-American college graduates owe around $25,000 more in student loan debt on average than their white counterparts. The same report also found that four years after graduation, 48% of Black students owe around 12.5% more than they originally borrowed. Such disparities are particularly stark in the Milwaukee area, according to a 2019 Federal Reserve Bank of New York report. In majority-minority ZIP codes in Milwaukee, Waukesha and West Allis, 23% of the population has student loan debt, compared to 19% of majority white ZIP codes. The real difference comes in the proportion of those loans that are in default. In ZIP codes where most residents are people of color, 21% of the loans are in default, compared to just 6% in majority-white areas. Evers’ task force recommended Wisconsin take several steps to ease the student debt burden, including expanding financial literacy education for K-12 students; increasing need-based financial aid; loan forgiveness for graduates entering certain professions; state tax credits; and a mechanism to refinance student debt to lower interest rates. It concluded that “finding solutions to tackle racial and ethnic inequity in student debt is a critical aspect of finding solutions for Wisconsin’s student loan borrowers.” Disparities deep in Milwaukee A variety of studies have named Milwaukee the nation’s most racially segregated metropolitan area, home to structural inequality that makes it tougher for Black residents to bolster their standard of living compared to white residents. A 2020 UW-Milwaukee Center for Economic Development report compared Milwaukee’s Black community to those in the country’s 50 largest metropolitan cities, finding Milwaukee’s Black residents fared among the bottom three nationally in income and economic mobility. Myrick said these statistics show how racism inhibits the overall well-being of Black folks. “The base of it is racism. Racism is the driving force in the disparities between Black and white people,” Myrick said. “We’re not receiving the same education, the same resources or the same facilities.” During a March online debate for Intelligence Squared U.S. on student loan forgiveness, Ashley Harrington of the Center for Responsible Lending said many Black students are severely burdened by this loan debt. The nonprofit works to protect homeownership and family wealth by opposing abusive financial practices. “(Student debt) is disproportionately weighing on borrowers of color, Black borrowers in particular, who are more likely to borrow, to borrow more and to struggle in repayment,” said Harrington, federal advocacy director for the group. “That is the direct result of centuries of racially exclusionary policies and practices that continue to this day.” At Myrick’s alma mater, UW-Milwaukee, many students are racking up crippling debt to lenders.