★ Plate No. II · Volume I · The Du Bois Reappraisal ★

The Burden of the
Educated Negro, 2024

Le fardeau de la dette étudiante par race aux États-Unis, 2024
Student Loan Debt Four Years After Graduation, by Race
White borrowers — ~$28,000
Hispanic borrowers — ~$35,000
Black borrowers — ~$53,000
Three bands spiral outward from the same origin — each representing the average student debt four years after graduation. The White band stops. The Hispanic band continues. The Black band keeps coiling. The spiral is the compound weight of borrowing against a wealth gap: when there is no family wealth to cushion the degree, the debt winds tighter and longer. Nearly half of Black borrowers owe more than they originally borrowed.

★ The Finding ★

$25,000 more
Four years after graduation, Black borrowers owe approximately $25,000 more than their White peers — $53,000 versus $28,000. The gap is not explained by degree type, institution, or field of study alone. It is the compounding cost of beginning from a deficit of inherited wealth. The spiral does not lie: it measures how far the debt winds before it stops.

★ The Underlying Data ★

Group Avg. debt 4 yrs post-grad Source
White borrowers ~$28,000 Federal Reserve SCF; Brookings analysis of Dept. of Education data
Hispanic borrowers ~$35,000 Federal Reserve SCF; Brookings analysis
Black borrowers ~$53,000 Federal Reserve SCF; Brookings analysis
Black negative amortization ~50% Share of Black borrowers who owe more than original amount (Brookings)

Method Note

The Du Bois Spiral is the most recognized visual form from the 1900 Paris Exposition plates. Du Bois used it to render disproportionate data: when one category so exceeds another that a straight bar would run off the page, the bar is wound into a spiral instead. The coiling is not decoration — it is the data speaking. The tighter and longer the spiral, the greater the disproportion.

This plate extends that form to student loan debt. All three bands begin at the same origin and coil outward along an Archimedean spiral. The length of each band is proportional to the dollar amount owed. The White band completes roughly one and a half turns; the Black band completes nearly three. The visual rhetoric is immediate: the debt literally goes further, winds tighter, takes longer to unwind.

This is a preview plate for conversation, drafted April 2026. The figures are approximations derived from Brookings Institution analyses of Department of Education data and the Federal Reserve Survey of Consumer Finances. The production plate for The Du Bois Reappraisal, Volume I will cite exact figures from the most recent published sources. No figure will appear that cannot be traced to a primary dataset.

★ This plate seeks its patron ★
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