Student loan debt. It weighs heavily upon hundreds of thousands of Americans. It also is the leading reason African Americans drop out of college. Yet, surprisingly, a new study shows that indebted Black students actually are carrying a lighter debt load than their White and Asian peers. And they tend to come from households that have comparably higher incomes.

According to Life After Debt: Results of the National Student Loan Survey, recently released by Nellie Mae -- the nation's largest nonprofit provider of student loans -- 69 percent of African Americans who drop out of college do so because of high student loan debt. That compares with 43 percent of Whites who offered the same reason for dropping out. Additionally, 59 percent of African American student loan borrowers feel "extremely" or "very" burdened by their student loan payments.

"Our survey confirmed what many have suspected: While student loans have helped millions of students gain access to a postsecondary education, higher debt incurred from borrowing to cover the increasing cost of college is becoming more of a burden for some students," said Lawrence O'Toole, president and CEO of Nellie Mae.

"In an era when our higher education institutions are striving to diversify their student bodies and better reflect the makeup of our population in general, large segments are falling through the cracks .... That 69 percent of African American students who drop out of college cite high student loan debt as the reason is a statistic we need to pay attention to," he warns.

Yet, the Nellie Mae study shows that African Americans generally have a lower average, debt level than Whites and Asians. The average 1997 debt level for African Americans was $16,800, compared with $18,900 for Whites, and $20,900 for Asian borrowers. The debt level for Hispanic borrowers was $15,800.

The average debt level for all groups was $18,600. In 1991, the average debt level for all borrowers was $8,200.