How does psychology doctorates' debt stack up?

• About 38 percent of doctorate recipients in psychology/social sciences¹ and 39 percent of doctorate recipients in education complete their degrees with more than $30,000 of graduate-education-related debt.² That's higher than the average percentage in all science and engineering fields (24 percent) and much higher than in fields such as mathematics/computer sciences (11 percent), engineering (9 percent) and physical sciences/earth sciences (9 percent).³
• Also, a larger percentage of racial/ethnic minority psychology/social sciences students graduate with debt compared with nonminorities. In 2016, approximately 65 percent of black/African-American psychology/social sciences doctorate recipients graduated with more than $30,000 worth of debt, compared with 52 percent of American Indians/Alaska Natives, 48 percent of Hispanics/Latinos, 35 percent of whites and 19 percent of Asians.

Want more information? See CWS's interactive data tools: https://www.apa.org/workforce/data-tools or contact cws@apa.org .