Trapped by Education

By JOHN GRAVOIS

How the discipline became the predominant one for black scholars, and what it's costing them

One spring day in 2004, during her third year of doctoral study at Howard University, Angela E. Lee received a letter from the federal government telling her she had to look elsewhere for student loans.

The letter said that she had borrowed a total of $138,500 in federal student aid — a debt she had accumulated while financing her entire postsecondary education with a wearying