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According to multiple studies published over the last year, alarmingly high numbers of college students don’t have enough to eat. In one survey of nearly 4,000 people, between between 20 and 25 percent of students at four-year and community colleges were going hungry.
“College and living costs have both increased, yet income has been declining over the last ten years,” says Sara Goldrick-Rab, who researches issues of access to postsecondary education.
A new study released in August by the Urban Institute relies on federal data rather than self-reporting by the students. The stigma and sense of shame around not being able to afford food, Goldrick-Rab says, means that previous research may have even underestimated the problem. “I’m afraid that the truth is a lot higher,” she says.
The recent Urban Institute study looked at U.S. Census Bureau labor statistics for undergraduate students from 2011 to 2015; it found that households with two-year college students experienced the highest rate of food insecurity—more than 13 percent in 2015, down from a high of 21 percent in the years after the 2008 recession. More than 11 percent of households with four-year college students experienced food insecurity in 2015.
Aside from being more vulnerable to illness, food insecure students often have lower grades, increased stress, depression, and reduced focus. The authors of the Urban Institute study conclude that one effective approach to the problem would be to revisit the eligibility rules for federal SNAP benefits (formerly called food stamps).
As it stands, students enrolled in higher education at least part-time must meet certain conditions to receive the benefits, such as being unable to work due to disability, caring for a young child, or working 20 hours or more per week, explains Kristin Blagg, Research Associate at the Urban Institute and one of the authors of the study.
“There are a number of ways to potentially increase supports for these students, such as reducing the number of required working hours for SNAP eligibility, or promoting the expansion of ‘wraparound’ student support,” she tells The Progressive.
It should come as no surprise that food insecurity varies by race, age, and employment status—women, minorities and the unemployed are more likely to be hungry. The Urban Institute study also found that older students in two-year or vocational schools are more likely to be food insecure than students attending four-year colleges, especially private institutions.
These numbers are perhaps affected by changing demographics of higher education. Roughly forty percent of undergraduate students are twenty-five or older, and more than half are “independent students” who don’t rely on their parents for support.
Justice Butler, an older student at Houston Community College who returned to school after losing her job, has been struggling with homelessness and hunger on and off for several years. “In a bad area [rent is] $600 or more, and further away from school,” she says. “It takes one classmate three hours to get to school on the bus.”
Butler has had to turn down full-time jobs in favor of part-time jobs so she can keep on top of her workload from school. She was also surprised at how little federal and state assistance she receives as a student, despite paying taxes from the age of sixteen.
“I thought I would at least get a voucher for a place to stay and assistance with food,” Butler says. “Once a working person has lost their job and has no more unemployment benefits—or had none to begin with—there is no organization out there to help.”
In recent years, some states have made it easier for food insecure college students by streamlining the SNAP application process. Last month, Illinois passed a law establishing a process to identify and notify students who may be eligible for the subsidy as well as providing a one-page form to verify enrollment. Nineteen other states provide a web-based portal that people can use to apply for, recertify and manage their SNAP accounts rather than visiting an office. A number of states also use mobile apps to further streamline the service.
But the biggest hurdle for students may be the work requirement. Students not receiving Federal Work Study are required to work 20 hours a week to receive SNAP benefits. Federal Work Study funds tend to mostly be awarded to students from families with incomes of $60,000 or higher ($20,000 or higher for independent students), leaving out those with greatest need. In essence, these otherwise-eligible students are penalized for being too poor. (While some may think this is only a problem for low-income families, the Urban Institute study also points out that college students from higher-income backgrounds are experiencing food insecurity.)
Compounding the problem, working more than twenty hours per week has been shown to have a negative effect on academic success, and increase the incidence of dropping out.
When the work requirement was first put in place, it was possible to earn enough at a part-time minimum wage job to pay for most if not all of the costs of college and to do so within four to five years. That is not true today, when a full-time minimum-wage salary is just over $15,000, not enough for basic tuition at many state universities.
Despite these changes, college is still seen by many as a necessary path to financial success. Yet Butler says that as long as she’s in school, finding basic necessities like a place to live and food “will be a struggle.”