Helping the Helpers: Social Work Students Have More Economic Hardship and Loan Reliance Than Other Graduate Students

Background and Purpose: As care work, social work is undervalued, as evidenced by wage penalties. We argue that care work is also undervalued in educational systems by extracting more unpaid labor (i.e., practicum) and tuition (i.e., few assistantships). Devaluation in graduate education may induce economic hardship and loan reliance. Studies have documented social work students’ high rates (40-56%) of food and housing insecurity, two forms of economic hardship. CSWE reports that graduate social work students take on over $38,000 in debt (program-reported data is likely an underestimate). Despite knowledge of the problem, we know little about whether the hardships experienced by MSW students are endemic to care work. Our research questions were, therefore: Is the care work devaluation theory supported for graduate students? More specifically, do MSW students experience more hardship and loan reliance than other graduate students? And does early-life social class account for hardship and loan disparities between MSW and other graduate students (i.e., the effects of selection into the profession).

Methods: This study used data from the 2022 Graduate Student Experience at Research Universities survey of graduate students at one public midwestern university (N=1,190). The survey asked about financial support and educational experiences. Use of loans and loans as a primary source of support were binary variables derived from single survey items. Loan stress was an ordinal measure of concern about paying off educational loans. Two items ascertained food insecurity and two measured housing insecurity – transformed into dichotomous indicators. Bivariate analysis compared MSW students to all other graduate students. Finally, to examine selection bias, we used regression analysis to examine the mediation effect of reported childhood social class on the relationship between program of study and each measure of hardship (e.g., loan use, loan stress, insecurity).

Results: We found that MSW (n=78) students were more likely to take out loans and experience economic hardship than were other graduate students (n=1,122). MSW students were three times more likely to take out loans (68.4% vs 20.5%), p<.001 and five times more likely to primarily support themselves with loans (45.3% vs 9.22%), p<.001. Among graduating students, MSW students were more likely to be concerned about paying off their educational loans, p<.001. MSW students had more housing insecurity (50% vs 36%), p=.023, but no more food insecurity than other graduate students (36% vs 32%), p=.302. Social class partially explained the differences between MSW and other graduate students’ concerns about paying off loans and housing insecurity but did not mediate disparities in loan use.

Conclusions and Implications: MSW students’ higher loan reliance, concerns about paying for their education and paying off their loans, and housing insecurity are pressing concerns. Because economic hardship is most prevalent among social work students and selection into the profession by early life social class does not fully explain differences, future research should examine how unpaid practicum and graduate funding impact social work students’ hardship. Identifying these potential points of intervention could help students and universities advocate for improving social work students’ economic wellbeing.