Abstract

Millions of Americans carry student loan debt without ever earning a degree. This group faces a compounding disadvantage: the financial obligations of a college education without the income premium that credential attainment typically brings. We ask whether that disadvantage extends to housing, specifically whether student loan borrowers who did not complete a degree are more likely to fall behind on rent, and whether that risk differs by race. Using data from the 2023 Survey of Household Economics and Decisionmaking (SHED), we estimate probit regression models on a sample of 2,896 borrowers with current or past student loan obligations, and separately on a subsample of 2,227 who had fully repaid their loans. In the full sample, non-completion is not significantly associated with rent delinquency overall, but the picture changes sharply when we look by race. Among Black borrowers, failure to complete a degree raises the probability of falling behind on rent by a meaningful margin (b = 0.712, p < .05), and the effect is even larger among Hispanic borrowers (b = 0.954, p < .05). Both effects largely disappear once student loans are repaid, suggesting that the monthly debt burden is a key driver of housing vulnerability for these groups. Increased borrowing, subjective financial condition, household income, and the presence of children are consistent predictors of delinquency across both samples. These results point to the importance of race-conscious policy responses, since interventions designed for the average borrower are unlikely to reach those who need help most.

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