Walden University and The False Promise of Upward Mobility for Black Women
Black women are grossly underrepresented in doctoral education, earning only 3% of doctorates awarded in the US each year. For the few of us who make it to and through doctoral education, many of us see the doctorate as an opportunity to change the trajectory of our lives and our communities.
Despite being “the most educated group” in America, our dreams of leveraging formal academic credentials to catalyze our upward mobility are often costly, as Black women bear the heaviest burden of student loan debt, completing their degrees with nearly 3x the amount of debt as the national average. Though the Biden/Harris administration has pushed moderate student loan debt policy forward, loan forgiveness of $10,000 barely makes a dent in the more than $160,000 of graduate debt that 22% of Black doctoral degree holders have.
The often-quoted statistic that Ph.D. holders earn $1.3 million more over their lifetimes than those with bachelor’s degrees is based on differences in compensation for white men. For Black women, the rewards of a graduate degree are far less significant, and nowhere near guaranteed — especially when race and gender wage gaps are factored in. So why do we persist in accumulating substantial loans to pursue doctoral education, when the benefits seem disproportionately elusive for Black women? And who is to blame for this crisis? The government, which has money to fund wars but not eradicate student loan debt? Individuals, who are misguided in their pursuit to get advanced degrees? Or institutions that do not adequately recruit, retain, or support — financially or professionally — Black women doctoral students?
Ironically, some of the institutions that are the worst offenders for loan debt produce the most number of advanced degrees in the Black community. Walden University, a private, online, for-profit institution, awards 1,500 doctoral degrees to Black people each year — the most of any institution and 6 times more than Howard University. According to a class action lawsuit that was filed against the university in 2022, Walden has engaged in “reverse redlining,” intentionally and deceptively targeting and promising Black women interested in doctoral education a quick and cost-effective path to the degree.
Though the lawsuit is still pending, the claims add up to me. After all, a visit to Walden’s website may leave you thinking that it was a subsidiary of Spelman; Black women are featured prominently on their home and application pages, appearing more than any other demographic. The advertising works: in 2016, 40% of Walden doctoral students identified as Black, and 75% identified as female. Despite these allegations, Black women are still applying to and struggling through doctoral degrees at Walden University, in a number of different programs.
After putting a call out to the 3,000 scholars in the Cohort Sistas community, we spoke to five current or former Walden University doctoral students who identify as Black women, to get their perspectives on whether Walden was a beacon of hope for Black women pursuing doctoral degrees, or a predatory institution clamping down on the dreams of Black upward mobility.
