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ABSTRACT
ABSTRACT
Although research has been conducted in other professional disciplines, social work has yet to explore how doctoral student debt load influences career development. This exploratory study surveyed 281 social work doctoral students and recent graduates, 75 BSW and MSW program leaders, and 24 doctoral program leaders about debt load, career choices, financial anxiety, and programmatic responses. Descriptive and qualitative results illustrate the complexity of doctoral students’ financial, family, and work circumstances, the role of debt load and moonlighting, the nascent nature of program responses to debt-related mentoring needs, and program ambivalence concerning the pros and cons of various debt load solutions. Exploratory factor analysis is presented for a financial anxiety instrument that may be useful in future research studies.
Students who finance their higher education increasingly rely on federal student loans, following the expansion of the student loan program and declines in federal support for grant programs (Minicozzi, 2005; Price, 2004). Student debt issues have resurfaced on the national scene with federal proposals under consideration and under fire. By the time doctoral-level training is completed, students may have accrued considerable amounts and multiple forms of student debt across their educational careers. This is particularly significant in light of overlapping demands and life structures experienced during this developmental period, including job and family status changes. Understanding the ways student debt load influences career development decisions of social work doctoral students is important to students, doctoral program leaders, social work programs where these students are hired after graduation, and the future of the social work profession as a whole.
Background and rationale
There is a relative absence of available evidence concerning student debt load among doctoral-trained social workers and other behavioral health professionals. Published studies primarily examine undergraduate students’ experiences with educational debt load or address circumstances related to professions like medicine, veterinary medicine, nursing, law, and dentistry. One reason this issue warrants the attention of the social work profession was suggested by a study of doctors in internal medicine residency programs (West, Shanafelt, & Kolars, 2011). Quality of life and satisfaction with work-life balance were significantly lower among medical residents holding high levels of educational debt compared to their peers. In turn, increasing debt load was associated with a significant gap in learning and with symptoms of career burnout. The negative effects of high debt load were experienced more by international students than by U.S. students and by women compared to men. Further relevance can be derived from evidence that debt patterns had a significant effect on professionals’ career choices after degree completion as well as their ‘moonlighting’ activities during advanced training, at least among dental and medical students (Greysen, Chen, & Mullan, 2011; Matthew, Walton, Dumaresq, & Sudmant, 2006a, 2006b; Miller, 2005; Steiner et al., 2012). For example, there was an inverse relationship between debt load and likelihood of choosing an academic (versus direct practice) career in medicine (Steiner et al., 2012; Walton et al., 2006a, 2006b).
Similarly, Chieffo, Kelly, and Ferguson (2008) reported a widening gap between educational debt load and starting salaries for veterinary school graduates between 1988 and 2007; by the end of the study period, educational debt was 2.3 times the starting salaries, an alarming ratio that more than doubled during the 15 years of the study. The authors concluded that conditions for new graduating veterinary medicine students “appear unsustainable” (p. 910), and where graduates elected to practice and the type of practices they joined was “being driven by debt” (p. 916). It is important to similarly assess these issues of sustainability and debt-driven choices among social work doctoral program graduates vis-à-vis early-career salaries.
Additional evidence suggests that debt load affects postgraduate school career choices. In their study of allopathic medical school graduates, Andriole, Whelan, and Jeffe (2008) described a steady increase in new graduates’ debt burden that coincided with a decline among graduates who elect generalist practice. They also detected a negative association between debt load and selection of research careers among medical student graduates: research-intensive career choices were less likely among those with debt loads more than $100,000 at graduation. Although the impact of debt load on research career choices was offset by students receiving scholarships or grants during their training years, Andriole et al. (2008) noted that students who received these forms of support may have differed from other students in terms of their research-related career aims at the start.
Debt incurred as undergraduate students is often carried forward during advanced training. Trends in student financial aid have shifted dramatically over the past decade or so. The Higher Education Act (1965) led to a series of financial aid programs intended as a means of subsidizing low-income youths’ college costs, including the Guaranteed Student Loan and Stafford Loans programs as well as Pell Grants. Subsequently, student financial aid packages have shifted from government-backed grants toward more reliance on private student loans (Minicozzi, 2005; Price, 2004). According to a White House (2011) report, about two thirds of undergraduates have relied on student loans, with an average debt load greater than $23,000 at graduation. At the end of baccalaureate training, educational debt load appeared greatest among women and African American and Hispanic graduates of U.S. colleges and universities (Price, 2004). The Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010, beginning with students enrolled in 2014, addressed the repayment plan for federally backed student loans of lower-income and middle-class students. These are issues of great significance to social work program leaders seeking to recruit diverse student cohorts into their doctoral programs.
Minicozzi (2005) reported on data from men who received federal student loan support as undergraduates between the years 1976 and 1985. Men with higher undergraduate debt load were more likely to attend graduate school than were men with less. Minicozzi suggested two explanations: Either debt repayment was deferred during further education, or individuals willing to incur greater educational debt placed a higher personal priority on achieving still higher levels of education. Dowd (2008) offered a dynamic model of undergraduate college education debt behavior, integrating borrowing decisions, characteristics of borrowers, earning expectations, and temporal and threshold effects of cumulative debt that may or may not be a relevant model for doctoral education debt. Limited evidence concerning social work students suggests that their financial literacy is relatively strong: 70% correct on a 48-item measure (Kindle, 2013).
It is difficult to project how recent and pending changes in the undergraduate funding systems will affect future applications and enrollment in graduate school education, including social work master’s and doctoral degree programs. Furthermore, little in the literature explains any relationship between anticipated debt load and students’ choices of where to pursue their advanced education (Matthew et al., 2006a, 2006b). A small portion of literature offered recommendations at the program and profession levels for addressing the impact of student debt on career choices. For example, Steiner et al. (2012) recommended that institutions offer debt repayment programs as an incentive for new faculty hiring and developing opportunities for moonlighting that meet professional standards and criteria for workload expectations and supplemental training experiences. These are additional issues of significance for recruiting students into doctoral social work programs as well as for supporting and mentoring them during training and early career development. Preparation for academic careers is a major goal of many social work doctoral programs, yet we do not know if social work students’ debt load might affect academic and research career trajectories as it seems to in some other professions.
Based on the limited knowledge base concerning social work doctoral education and debt load issues, this exploratory study addressed the following:
Exploring social work doctoral students’ educational debt status and financial anxiety
Exploring the influence of social work doctoral student debt load on career development decisions
Exploring how social work programs might address doctoral student debt load in new faculty hiring and mentoring for early career development
Methods
The following set of three cross-sectional, online surveys was completed during the period of April to November, 2013: a student survey, BSW/MSW program administrator survey, and a doctoral program survey.
Participants
Three types of participants were recruited via e-mail messages: present, recently graduated, and new incoming doctoral students; leaders of BSW and MSW programs; and social work doctoral program leaders. All study procedures were reviewed by the principal investigator’s home institutional review board and on an as-required basis by review boards at recruiting institutions.
Student surveys
Student participants were recruited via their home doctoral programs as a means of respecting students’ privacy rights, Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (1974) guidelines, and the programs’ proprietary rights to the information contained in their e-mail lists. Doctoral program leaders distributed a standardized recruitment message to their doctoral students and alumni (graduates from the doctoral program since May 1, 2010). The initial recruitment messages were followed by two subsequent (monthly) reminder e-mail messages.
A total of 281 recent, current, and incoming students from 43 different institutions participated in the survey; recent students were all graduates, none had left the program for other reasons. The investigators did not have access to information that would allow them to determine the number of potential student respondents receiving recruitment messages from their doctoral programs; therefore, response rates for the student survey cannot be adequately assessed. Student incentive payment involved the option to enroll in a drawing for one of 20 national retailer $25 gift cards.
At the conclusion of the survey period, 10 student participants were randomly selected from among those who also volunteered to participate in a follow-up telephone interview. These randomly selected individuals were interviewed after the main study results were drafted to conduct a validity check of conclusions drawn from the study data. Participants who volunteered for the follow-up telephone calls were entered in the incentive drawing a second time.
BSW/MSW program leader surveys
A total of 75 leaders of accredited BSW and MSW programs engaged in the program leaders’ survey. Recruitment materials were sent to the dean, director, or chair of 550 programs listed as accredited by the Council on Social Work Education, resulting in a response rate of 13.64%. It is worth noting that in 42 cases, automatic reply messages to our recruitment e-mails indicated that the target leaders were not available during the survey period (mid-May to mid-September). Two monthly recruitment reminder messages were sent. BSW and MSW program leaders’ incentive payment involved the option to enroll in a drawing for one of 10 donations of $50 to one of their student scholarship funds.
Social work doctoral program leader surveys
A total of 24 social work doctoral program leaders responded to the program leaders’ survey. Recruitment materials were sent to 75 members of the Group for the Advancement of Doctoral Education in Social Work, resulting in a response rate of 32% for the doctoral program surveys. However, many surveys contained significant amounts of missing quantitative program data. Reminder materials were sent on two occasions, about 4 weeks apart. Incentive payment for social work doctoral program leaders involved the option to enroll in a drawing for one of 10 donations of $50 to one of their student scholarship funds.
Measures and procedures
All survey data were collected electronically using a secure, data-protected, online survey tool (https://www.LimeSurvey.org/) maintained on a secured server.
Student survey measures
The student measures included five types of information.
Demographic data
Student demographic questions included student role in the social work doctoral program, age, gender or sex, race or ethnicity, country of origin, relationship status, residence type, number and type of dependents they supported (at least 25%), zip code, name of social work doctoral program, year of entry to doctoral program, and actual or anticipated year of graduation. Zip codes were used to calculate a cost-of-living ratio for each student’s place of residence in comparison to a norm zip code for a community considered by market analysts to be reflective of a national population norm on many economic and social variables (Relocation Essentials, 2015).
Financial and work situations
Three generic questions addressed students’ perceptions of financial vulnerability or security during summer, autumn, and spring semesters. Each item was rated on a 5-point scale measuring balance or imbalance between financial needs and financial resources (1 = needs greatly outweigh financial resources to 5 = financial needs are greatly outweighed by financial resources). Next, students identified the point of greatest financial vulnerability during their doctoral education and their responses to that financial vulnerability, including increasing debt, withdrawing from graduate studies, reducing expenses, getting a job or higher pay, I don’t know, or taking a leave from graduate studies. Current and recent students’ responses were about recent academic periods, and new incoming students’ responses were about the upcoming academic year.
Subsequently, respondents estimated the percent contribution from each of eight different sources of finances and any other sources not listed. Students were then asked about moonlighting opportunities and the extent to which these activities help in building their academic or professional vitae, enhance their course work, and interfere with progress in the program, rated on a 1–5 scale (1 = not at all to 5 = extremely much). Moonlighting was defined as an income-producing job outside the doctoral program and additional to doctoral studies or work associated with program-provided support.
The next item asked about relative amounts of a student’s projected or experienced overall educational debt at the time of graduation from the doctoral program. This item was rated on a 4-point scale on anticipated or experienced first-year salary (1 = no educational debt load, 2 = debt load less than first year salary, 3 = debt load exceeding first year salary, or 4 = debt load exceeding two times first year salary). Students also reported the actual dollar amount of undergraduate and master’s degree debt carried forward before beginning their doctoral education. The remaining three items in this section asked about financial support from their doctoral programs: level of financial support, satisfaction with the degree of support over time, and the extent to which they felt that the program’s financial support resources were distributed in a fair and equitable manner.
Financial anxiety
Each student’s level of anxiety about finances was evaluated by respondents’ ratings of how true they believe each of 12 statements to be on a 4-point scale (1 = very true to 4 = completely untrue). These items were drawn from the index of debt anxiety in academic settings published by Shapiro and Burchell (2012) who calculated a single total financial anxiety score. Ten items created a single unidimensional scale in their data set (Chronbach’s α = .855); they found that use of all 12 items resulted in an unstable 3-factor solution in their data set. Also, because of the direction used for the rating scale, their resulting scores were counterintuitive: higher scores indicated lower anxiety.
Career Implications of Doctoral Social Work Student Debt Load
Published online:
28 November 2016Table 1. Student participant demographic variables and distributions (N = 281).
Career Implications of Doctoral Social Work Student Debt Load
Published online:
28 November 2016Table 2. Sources of support during most recent year.
Career Implications of Doctoral Social Work Student Debt Load
Published online:
28 November 2016Table 3. Exploratory factor analysis on financial anxiety items.
Career choices
Six final quantitative questions asked how the program costs and support might have influenced students’ specific career development choices on a 5-point scale of influence or impact (1 = not at all to 5 = extremely much). The items reflected impact on choice of doctoral program, jobs students apply to after graduation, and areas of research.
Final comments
Participants provided additional comments about student indebtedness and the study participation experience.
BSW/MSW program leaders
The survey distributed to the BSW/MSW program leaders explored awareness and readiness to address student indebtedness issues, including (a) program demographic data, (b) open-ended questions regarding the significance of student indebtedness in recruiting new faculty and opportunities they have used or considered for addressing indebtedness with new faculty hires, (c) mentoring new faculty regarding the relative impact on career development of various opportunities for repaying student debts, and (e) options they have used or considered for assisting their own doctoral students regarding student debt. Because of the relatively low response rate, only qualitative data from BSW/MSW program leaders are reported.
Doctoral program leaders
The program leaders were asked their opinions concerning mentoring options related to student debt and career impact and the significance of student debt to students’ career decisions and to provide any other comments on the topic. An array of program demographic variables were requested; however, these quantitative data were inconsistently completed. Thus, the only data analyzed and reported here are leaders’ qualitative responses.
Results
The presentation of results is organized around the three original specific aims of the study, preceded by student demographic results, and followed by results of the cross-validation telephone interviews with students. Statistical analyses were conducted using IBM SPSS (Version 21).
Demographic results
Demographic characteristics of student respondents are presented in Table 1. The majority were currently enrolled in their doctoral programs. Women, including two who self-identified as queer, were far more prevalent than men (78% versus 22%). The students ranged in age from 21 to 67 years, with a mean age of 37.7 (SD = 9.164). The majority self-identified their race as White (75.1%), and the vast majority indicated the United States as being their country of origin (86%).
Almost two thirds of the student respondents were in a marital or stable same- or opposite-sex partner relationship. More than half of the student respondents held significant financial responsibility for at least one other family member—a minor or adult child, parent, sibling, or partner or spouse. Cost of living ratios ranged from .80 to 1.51, with the mean and median very close to the normed value of 1.
Exploring student debt load and financial anxiety
Debt load
Only about one quarter of the doctoral student respondents graduated or anticipated graduating without educational debt (26.7%). The remaining students were about evenly divided over the amount of debt they experienced or anticipated at graduation: 22.4% with debt less than their first-year salary, 22.4% with debt exceeding their first-year salary, and 20.6% with debt exceeding twice their first-year salary. One third (33.5%) of respondents held no debt prior to entering the doctoral program. The reported preexisting debt load among the other two thirds ranged from $67 to $280,000; the mean was $28,952 (SD = $35,944), and the median was $20,000.
Financial needs outweighed financial resources among 89% of the student respondents. Resource-to-need patterns did not differ much by semester: 56.2% had needs outweighing resources during autumn and spring, compared to 58.4% during summer. About 47% responded to experiencing or anticipating financial shortfall by increasing their debt load—10.3% either by taking a job or another job with higher pay, 9.6% by reducing expenses, and 1.5% by withdrawing or taking a leave from doctoral studies (4.3% responded I don’t know). Table 2 details the sources of financial support that doctoral students received or expected to receive. They relied most heavily on forms of support involving a work component (fellowships, assistantships, and employment). There also was heavy reliance on scholarships with no repayment expectation and loans with a repayment requirement as well as considerable use of personal resources (including reliance on family members); 73% received support from two or more sources.
The students’ assessment of the financial support provided by their doctoral programs was skewed toward inadequate (19.2%, grossly inadequate; 28.5%, somewhat lacking), but 15.3% felt it was sufficient, and another 22.8% felt it was either somewhat or very generous. The students’ level of satisfaction with the degree of consistency in the financial support provided by the doctoral program varied across the scale (33.8%, ranged between quite a lot or extremely much; 37.3%, slightly or somewhat; and 14.2%, not at all). Ratings in regard to how fair and equitable programs were in distributing financial support skewed more positively (about 37%, quite a lot or extremely much; 37.3%, slightly or somewhat; 14.2%, not at all).
Financial anxiety
We conducted an exploratory factor analysis of the full set of 12 items on the financial anxiety instrument. Because our participants were so different from those completing the original survey, we were unsure about the wisdom of applying the simple 10-item summation scoring system described by Shapiro and Burchell (2012). Principal axis factoring with oblique (oblimin) rotation resulted in a 2-factor solution with initial eigenvalues greater than 1; the scree plot confirmed a 2-factor solution. The total variance explained by the two-factor solution was 47.63%, and the two factors were correlated at the 0.260 level. The Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin measure of sampling adequacy was 0.856; because this is greater than 0.5, we concluded that it was acceptable to proceed with factor analysis. Bartlett’s test of sphericity was significant at the p < .001 level (χ2 with 66df = 1155.146), indicating that the relationship between these items is sufficiently strong to proceed with the factor analysis and that the correlation matrix is not an identity matrix.
We labeled Factor 1 “anxiety and negative affect” based on seven items with factor loading values (on the pattern matrix) ranging from .529 to .825 (see Table 3). We labeled Factor 2 “avoiding the issue” based on four items that had factor loading values from .526 to .686. One item failed to load on either factor: “There’s little point in saving money and being careful with it, because you could lose it all through no fault of your own.” The Cronbach’s alpha value for the seven items identified as “anxiety and negative affect” was .863 and .741 for four items identified as “avoiding the issue.” Neither value improved appreciably with the deletion of any item. Thus, two separate financial anxiety variables were computed for each participant.
The scale for the financial anxiety index was reverse coded from the original survey to be more intuitive: low values now mean low anxiety or negative affect on the first scale and low avoidance of the topic on the second scale. The students’ financial anxiety and negative feeling scores included the full possible range from 7 to 28 across the seven items (M = 17.49, SD = 5.193, and median = 18.00). Students’ avoidance of the financial issue scores also included the full possible range from 4 to 16 on four items (M = 7.65, SD = 2.775, and median = 7.00). Neither of the two scales’ ratings differed significantly by type of institution (public vs. private) or by cost-of-living ratio (below or above the 50th percentile) on one-way analysis of variance. In a series of regression analyses, neither financial anxiety scale was significantly related to the demographic variables of race or gender, relationship status, country of origin, having dependents, or student status in the doctoral program.
Influence of student debt load on career development decisions
The students’ choice of doctoral program was influenced by educational cost (35.5%, quite a lot or extremely much; 26.4%, slightly or somewhat; 21.4%, not at all). Qualitative comments indicated that location and program emphasis were also important. Choice of postgraduation jobs was also related to educational costs (37.7%, 26.7%, and 22.1%, quite a lot or extremely much, slightly or somewhat, and not at all, respectively). Students rated doctoral education costs as having less impact, although not irrelevant, to their selected areas or types of research (28.1%, quite a lot or extremely much; 32.7%, slightly or somewhat; 26.3%, not at all). In addition, level of support by doctoral programs influenced many students’ choice of program (48%, quite a lot or extremely much; 21.4%, slightly or somewhat; 15.3%, not at all). The impact of program support level on types of postgraduation jobs sought or secured was also rated (37%, 25.3%, and 21.0%, quite a lot or extremely much, slightly or somewhat, not at all, respectively). Similarly, the impact of level of support on choice of research type or area was rated (35.2%, quite a lot or extremely much; 29.2%, slightly or somewhat; 19.6%, not at all).
About 79% of doctoral students held moonlighting jobs outside the program. Although the majority could argue that it contributed in some degree to building their vitae (67%), moonlighting seemed to interfere with progress in the doctoral program at least to some degree for more than half (56%). Student responses were relatively evenly distributed across the 5-point scale with regard to how much this type of outside employment enhanced course work.
BSW/MSW program administrators and doctoral program leaders
The qualitative responses from BSW/MSW program administrators and social work doctoral program leaders regarding how programs might address student and new faculty debt load were coded for common themes; these are reported together because of the high degree of similarity in response categories for the two leadership groups.
Initiatives for doctoral students
Initiatives that might help social work doctoral students reduce or eliminate student debt load reflected the following general categories: scholarships and fellowships; teaching, field supervision, and research assistantships on faculty grants; helping them find and maintain outside employment; and internally or externally funded dissertation grants or awards, and reduced-cost housing. Variations on these themes included programs or institutions paying for tuition, allowing faculty to use their professional development monies to pay for tuition while in their PhD programs, institutional or state-level funding or reimbursement for faculty earning a PhD, and faculty with children redirecting their tuition remission benefits to pay for their own tuition while engaged in doctoral training; establishing development priorities to secure scholarships for doctoral students; and paying doctoral students to mentor or advise BSW and MSW students or provide oversight to student organizations. At opposite extremes, some administrators indicated that their program had no such initiatives, whereas others observed that their program adequately supported doctoral students, so debt was not an issue.
Some leaders emphasized programs’ responsibility related to debt load. For example, one leader responded, “I would wonder about any social work college, school, or department that would create a situation in which its doctoral students accrue a significant debt load.” Others specified a program’s responsibility to accept only as many doctoral students as can be fully funded, encourage students to pursue doctoral work only if they are funded, and explore with BSW/MSW students the costs and benefits of pursuing a doctoral education. Additional recommendations included helping doctoral students move quickly through the PhD program and providing part-time educational options so they can maintain full-time employment during doctoral training.
In some cases, funding was designated as originating at the social work or doctoral program level, and in others the support originated from the campus or university level. Several leaders identified monies specific to diversity or minority candidates. A few recommended providing workshops for advanced doctoral students regarding the most lucrative career opportunities. The tone of some other recommendations was somewhat different: for example, helping students understand the importance of changing their lifestyle (“living humbly”) and working hard to stay out of debt, and routinely counseling prospective students on the dangers of generating large student debt while pursuing a career in social work. Working post-MSW was also suggested as a means of building up resources and reducing preexisting educational debt in preparation for doctoral education.
Mentoring new faculty on debt load
Program administrators’ and leaders’ responses to a question regarding options for addressing debt load experienced among new faculty hires fell into the following categories: pursuing loan forgiveness opportunities, offering income-based repayment programs for student loans and state-level efforts of the National Association of Social Workers regarding repayment grants (although these are typically directed to direct practice positions); increasing pay, providing an extra first summer salary as a signing or debt reduction bonus, reducing individuals’ costs for health care benefits or housing, and mentoring individuals about negotiating higher starting salaries and seeking institutions with employment incentives or strong start-up packages to cover educational debt load, and pursuing new minority hire initiatives with a debt reduction component and other mechanisms a program might help cover educational loan payments. A good deal of ambivalence was expressed about workload recommendations. On the one hand, recommendations included encouraging these individuals to be entrepreneurial about ways to supplement their regular faculty pay, working overloads or summers, writing books, and engaging in income-generating opportunities (such as consulting, training, professional practice, supervision, writing grants with supplemental salary, and taking on contract work). On the other hand, concerns were expressed about how engaging in these sorts of extra-income generating activities interferes with new faculty members’ abilities to meet the demands of their primary positions and contributes to burnout. Several administrators suggested that financial counseling, workshops about debt consolidation, financial literacy and budget management, access to financial planners for managing debt load, and senior faculty mentoring about debt should become part of the mentoring plan. Finally, many program administrators and doctoral program leaders indicated that they had not considered the issue of new faculty members’ educational debt load either in their hiring or mentoring processes. One respondent stated, “This survey has certainly raised my awareness of the need to talk with new hires about this.”
Cross-validation interviews
A total of seven students participated in the follow-up telephone interviews conducted for the purpose of cross-validating study conclusions. One topic that had consistent reactions was the apparent ambivalence in responses regarding moonlighting, adjunct teaching, and working during the doctoral program versus the pressure to progress through the program as quickly as possible. One student referred to her program’s “delusional optimism” with regard to time-in-program projections.
One student indicated that program leaders risk being “out of touch with reality” if they fail to recognize that students are moonlighting. Students repeatedly explained that expenses and costs of living are not adequately covered by scholarships, stipends, tuition remission, and fellowships. One student asked, “So, how do they think people live?” Another suggested that if not allowed to work outside the (full-time) program, “the math doesn’t add up.” These concerns led to some very expressive reactions to leaders’ suggestions concerning financial and budget-management counseling. It was deemed a “very elitist sentiment” by one, coming from a position of privilege, and that it was disenfranchising. The responses indicated that the problem is not knowing how to handle one’s finances but that the resources, no matter how well managed, are just not adequate to cover expenses.
Similarly, students questioned responses advocating for new graduates to assume increased teaching and other work responsibilities as a means of paying off student debt; they felt this strategy to be unrealistic and unsustainable. One recent graduate observed that they end up “burnt out” by teaching around the calendar for 2 years and that teaching load reductions are not paired with assuming outside work.
The interviewed students addressed several other important topics related to the findings. For example, one suggested that graduates may avoid seeking academic faculty positions because of low pay. This individual anticipates a potential problem for our profession “if PhDs don’t go into academia to train other PhDs.” With regard to big picture issues for the profession, another student indicated that in cases where students work (prior to doctoral education) to build up their savings, doctoral programs will be graduating older students with fewer remaining years in academia and fewer years to recover from student debt load. Another student observed that “the economy tanking” was created problems for students planning to draw on savings for self-support during doctoral training.
Three additional observations were offered concerning specific hazards that might be encountered. Federal immigration rules place limitations on international students with regard to outside and summer employment as well as on a partner’s or spouse’s ability to work: A couple would either have to live separated geographically or try to both live on one student stipend. A couple of students observed that unexpected health issues can severely interfere with funding that is tied to program progress: “If you are delayed, you are s.o.l. [s*** out of luck]” And one new faculty member observed that the university’s housing loan assistance and forgiveness plan was a mixed blessing: she was encouraged to purchase a home in a marginal neighborhood and is now “stuck” in an “underwater mortgage” situation.
Discussion
This study examined issues related to student debt load among a national convenience sample of social work doctoral students and recent graduates, including potential programmatic responses for addressing the issues. First, among the students and recent graduates who chose to respond to our recruitment efforts, educational debt load at graduation is anticipated or realized by a considerable majority. In many cases, doctoral debt load is superimposed over significant levels of preexisting debt load from undergraduate or master’s level education, and in many cases the cumulative debt load is considerable.
Study limitations
One crucial limitation of the present study concerns individuals whose voices were not heard. We know nothing about those who have not enrolled in social work doctoral education because they cannot afford it or about those who may have dropped out because of debt load concerns. Because recruiting and retaining a diverse body of advanced-level professionals is important in social work, learning more about these potential but discouraged social workers represents an important topic for future research. Not being able to compute a survey response rate for the student surveys is a study limitation plaguing many online surveys, which is difficult to know how to resolve in a practical manner. Nor do we know if there is an inherent bias built into the programs where the invitation to participate was shared compared to programs that did not circulate participant recruitment materials. The caveat, therefore, is that the survey results may or may not be generalizable to the full population of doctoral students. Another limitation relates to the low rate of completed doctoral program data. It would be wise for program leaders to develop some consensus regarding what and how valuable programmatic data could be systematically, reliably, and validly collected and made available for secondary analysis in future studies about social work education.
Study implications
As a group, social work doctoral students seem to be cognizant of their educational debt issues and willing to try to address them, perhaps more so than undergraduate students described in the literature. This observation relates to a measurement concern for future research to address; that is, the Shapiro and Burchell (2012) financial anxiety scale performed somewhat differently with this doctoral student sample than among the populations they originally tested. The results of our exploratory factor analysis suggest that it may be unwise to rely on a single composite financial anxiety score computed from this instrument. Two subscales may better represent participants’ responses. Further research might address whether this measurement difference is because of the nature of the distinctly different populations studied or a characteristic inherent in the instrument.
Study results also suggest that moonlighting is an important source of funds many social work doctoral students rely on. Although it is very likely that the types of moonlighting activities they engage in potentially can enhance their education and marketability on graduation, students generally are aware that these activities also may slow down the rate of their progression through the program. Students and program administrators might wish to explore the tipping point whereby the costs of moonlighting actually outweigh the financial, educational, and vita-building benefits. Students indicated that expectations for rates of progress may need to be redefined in some doctoral programs, and that don’t ask, don’t tell practices may need to be replaced by more thoughtfully designed accommodations to students’ need to engage in outside employment. In addition, program directors may need to consider the significance of students’ outside employment for stabilizing income across semesters when program support fluctuates.
The students’ demographic data suggest that supplemental income and educational debt load may be critical issues for their families; more than half of them are financially responsible for at least one other family member. It may be unrealistic to assume that program support is sufficient for students and their dependents, and this issue may be exacerbated among students from other countries who have noncitizen spouses or partners. Students’ qualitative responses sometimes indicated concern that their own educational debt load would become an intergenerational burden and that they wrestled with the pros and cons of spending resources now on their own education versus being able to plan for their children’s educational futures. In addition, doctoral student financial need seems to be consistent across the calendar year including summer months; it is not simply an academic-year issue.
As a group, the responses of program administrators reflect considerable ambivalence over doctoral students and new doctoral hires extending their financial resources through additional workload responsibilities. Although it seems to be accepted as a necessary evil by some, others express concerns about the steep toll it exacts and how it might negatively affect progress through a doctoral program or performance on new faculty members’ primary responsibilities for teaching, scholarship, and service. Program administrators may or may not be sufficiently concerned about how education and work demands have an impact on the intangible factor we might call work-life balance. This may play a significant role in individuals’ career development choices if social workers are like those in other, more studied professions (Andriole et al., 2008; Correa, 2012; Dorsey, Jarjoura, & Rutecki, 2003). The responses from a considerable number of program leaders suggest that programs have not yet developed systematic approaches for responding to doctoral students’ educational debt issues as they hire and mentor new junior faculty nor for mitigating the role of debt in a program’s ability to recruit and retain a diverse doctoral-trained workforce. Several social work deans and directors mentioned a responsibility to engage in new more extensive and more aggressive fund-raising initiatives specifically directed toward doctoral student support. To become more competitive in hiring new faculty, program leaders might want to explore options for helping new hires address their existing debt load, especially options that do not place excessive workload burdens on new faculty.
At the level of the profession, it is important to consider how debt load might relate to postgraduation career choices. Some students believe they will not be able to afford to assume academic and research positions after graduation because of low salaries. Eventually, this may contribute to a critical shortage of doctoral-trained social work educators and scholars. Evidence from other professions demonstrated that the types of positions assumed after graduation were influenced by debt load, particularly the avoidance of academic or research careers (Steiner et al., 2012). However, it is also clear that economics are not the sole determinant of where students consider enrolling in social work doctoral education and the types of jobs they assume after graduation. Future research on this topic might shed light on the relative importance and prioritization of factors such as geographical location, specific program characteristics, job market status, and lifestyle.
In summary, the topic of social work doctoral student debt is timely and has important implications for the future of doctoral students, new social work faculty, doctoral programs, and the social work profession. The issues overlap with, but are qualitatively and quantitatively different from, the issues of undergraduate student debt. BSSW/MSW program administrators and doctoral program leaders are developing greater awareness of the widely ranging implications and have begun to develop an array of responses that include interventions at the level of the individual, the program, and the profession. Future research and discourse may help in the identification, broader dissemination, and implementation of effective strategies.
Funding
This study was supported by funding from the Group for the Advancement of Doctoral Education (GADE) and The Ohio State University College of Social Work.
| Variable | N | (%)a |
|---|---|---|
| Program Status | 267 | (95.1) |
| New, incoming | 46 | (16.4) |
| Current/active | 162 | (57.7) |
| Graduated recently | 57 | (20.3) |
| On leave | 2 | (0.7) |
| Race/Ethnicity | 281 | (100) |
| Hispanic/Latinob | 15 | (6.1) |
| White | 211 | (75.1) |
| Black/African American | 27 | (9.6) |
| American Indian/Alaskan Native | 4 | (1.5) |
| Asianc | 19 | (6.8) |
| Other | 5 | (1.8) |
| Relationship Status | 261 | (92.8) |
| Single | 70 | (24.9) |
| Married | 150 | (53.4) |
| Separated/divorced | 10 | (3.5) |
| Opposite-sex partnership | 13 | (4.6) |
| Same-sex partnership | 18 | (6.4) |
| Living Situation | 260 | (92.5) |
| Home you own | 129 | (45.9) |
| Home you rent | 115 | (40.9) |
| In home of family/friend | 7 | (2.5) |
| On-campus housing | 7 | (2.5) |
| Co-op housing | 2 | (0.7) |
| Dependents (receiving at least 25% support) | 268 | (95.4) |
| None | 137 | (48.8) |
| Minor-age children | 60 | (21.4) |
| Partner/spouse | 38 | (13.5) |
| Parent/sibling | 11 | (3.9) |
| Adult child | 22 | (7.8) |
| Type of Institution | 264 | (94.1) |
| Public | 202 | (72) |
| Private | 62 | (22.1) |
Note. Source. aMissing data are reflected in sample sizes less than 281 with percent of available data presented.
bIncludes Cuban, Puerto Rican, Mexican, Mexican American, or other Hispanic, Latino, Spanish origin.
cIncludes Asian Indian, Chinese, Filipino, Vietnamese, Japanese, Korean, Native Hawaiian, Guamanian, Chamorro, Samoan, other Pacific Islander.
| Source Received | N (%) Who Received Support | Range in % of Supporta | M % of Support | SD % of Support | Median % of Supportb |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Scholarships (nonrepayable, nonwork awards) | 121 (78.9) | 1–100 | 32.32 | 31.95 | 22.00 |
| Fellowships/assistantships (work component awards) | 130 (87.8) | 5–100 | 44.29 | 31.42 | 42.50 |
| Grants (work component) | 16 (32.0) | 1–100 | 10.94 | 24.90 | 0 |
| Country of origin Government support | 2 (5.1) | 10–20 | 0.77 | 3.53 | 0 |
| Government-backed student loans | 83 (79) | 1–100 | 35.48 | 31.66 | 25.00 |
| Private or bank loans, line of credit | 33 (50.8) | 5–100 | 12.23 | 20.05 | 5.00 |
| Personal employment outside program | 120 (90.9) | 2–100 | 42.58 | 35.49 | 30.00 |
| Personal resources (savings, sale of assets, family/friends) | 133 (87) | 2–100 | 26.49 | 28.12 | 15.00 |
| Other | 26 (54.2) | 2–100 | 23.92 | 32.84 | 4.00 |
Source. Note. aIncludes only those with >0% support in this category.
bIncludes all responses between 0% and 100% support in this category.
| Item Number | Item Contents | Factor 1: Anxiety and Negative Affect | Factor 2: Avoiding the Issue |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | I find monitoring my bank or credit card accounts very boring. | .686 | |
| 2. | I prefer not to think about the state of my personal finances. | .526 | |
| 3. | Thinking about my personal finances can make me feel guilty. | .529 | |
| 4. | There’s little point in saving money and being careful with it, because you could lose it all through no fault of your own. | – | – |
| 5. | I am worried about the debt that I will have when I complete my university education. | .784 | |
| 6. | Thinking about my personal finances can make me feel anxious. | .815 | |
| 7. | I get myself into situations where I do not know where I’m going to get the money to “bail” myself out. | .582 | |
| 8. | Discussing my finances can make my heart race, or make me feel stressed. | .825 | |
| 9. | I do not make a big enough effort to understand my finances. | .662 | |
| 10. | I do not think I am doing as well as I could academically because I worry about money. | .653 | |
| 11. | I find opening bank statements unpleasant. | .575 | |
| 12. | I would rather someone else whom I trusted to keep my finances organized. | .670 |