The American Census Bureau identified 685,000 men and 916,000 women graduated from college in 2009. While this statistic is from four years ago - the 25% differential has not changed.

[Ten years from now we'll still be on top]

More women than ever (and more women than men) are attending and graduating from four-year degree programs across the country. This is an empowering statistic - the crack in the glass ceiling can't be far behind, right? More women are being exposed to, and participating in, STEM programming (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics), and therefore gaining entry into the most competitive global markets.

[Schooled me to the game]

Are you familiar with the old saying "if it's too good to be true, it probably is"?

While women across the country are flexing their mental muscles, the trade off is an overwhelming dark cloud of student debt. It is estimated that outstanding student loan debt, belonging to men and women, is at a whopping $1 trillion.

[Now I know my duty]

Yesterday, Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) said that the collection and profit of the U.S. Government off of student debt is "morally wrong."

"Instead of helping our students, the government is making a profit on student loans... That is wrong. It is morally wrong. That is obscene."

I, like thousands of other young Americans, am a product of Federal loans, and have just sign, sealed, and delivered, on my next financial package to pay for law school. Like thousands, I have been impacted by the inability of our Congressional leaders to act in preventing a change in student loan rates - which will, on average cost students an additional $1,000 a year in interest payments.

[Can't get no PhD, {Congress} holds me down]

The worst part? My ability to pay back my loans - even though more women than men are graduating from colleges and universities, even though more women than men are being accepted into colleges and universities  - is adversely oppressive. If I'm like my average female counterparts, I will not only take longer to pay back my loans, I will also end up paying more over the life of the loans.

While higher education is seeing an inverse gender gap, the "real world" is graduating women into a culture that still under pays and under values the work of women.

[I don't know what, they want from me]

All things being held equal, men working in the same entry-level jobs (after receiving degrees in the same fields) will earn an estimated $7,000 more than their had-been female classmates. And it doesn't stop there! Once my male co-workers and I progress out of entry-level work, the wage gap will increase to (as identified by the NPWF in a study of U.S. Census Bureau data) $11,084!

[It's like the more money we come across, the more problems we see]

That means when I filed my Master Promissory Note with the U.S. Department of Education I should have included my own asterisk next to my estimated post-graduate income: *note: of female gender, still earning 77 cents to every male dollar. 

The Equal Pay Act of 1963 was supposed to end the practice of "paying female employees less wages than male employees for the same job" - yet, the National Partnership For Women and Families found that this discrepancy is ever present - all 50 states, and the 50 largest metropolitan areas are all proponents of the disparity.

The number game continues - only to be more confusing! The Pew Research Center reported that 40% of American households are the economic result of female breadwinners.

[Bag a money much longer than yours]

This means that women today are not only more likely to graduate college, but at the same time get paid less than the men they graduated with - all while exists a rising likelihood of someday being the primary monetary pillar of their house and home.

All of a sudden that $1,000 increase in annual interest payments seems to be multiplied times a million. The encouragingly female environment that I was exposed to as an undergrad is quickly fading into the quicksand of reality.



What can we do? 

Call your congressional leaders. 

Support legislation like the Paycheck Fairness Act. 

Learn about transparent pay systems.