By Zainab Cheema
Hunger on College Campuses
COVID 19 has spotlighted a problem that has existed for quite some time—food and financial insecurities experienced by college students across America. Even with existing federal aid and college assistance programs like food pantries, many students are slipping through the cracks of Higher Ed. But as Sara Goldrick-Rab remarked in the Sept. 8, 2021 Congressional hearing on Hunger on College Campuses, food insecurity in college students is real, pervasive, and also solvable through the right combination of political will and investment.
Hunger on college campuses is a problem that threatens the entire enterprise of Higher Ed. “Hunger impacts virtually every college campus in America today, regardless of whether it is located in a wealthy neighborhood or a small town,” Congressman James McGovern observed at the Congressional hearing over which he presided. “It is estimated that as many as 59 percent of college students will confront food insecurity at some point, threatening their ability to graduate and achieve their professional goals.”
Sara Goldrick-Rab on Students as Humans First
Sara Goldrick-Rab, Professor of Sociology and Medicine at Temple University and founder of the Hope Center for College, Community and Justice, has been a food and financial security advocate for college students for over 20 years. She has authored numerous publications on the topic. This blog post will spotlight in particular her recent article in the Journal of Postsecondary Student Success, “Students are Human First: Advancing Basic Needs Security in the Wake of the COVID-19 Pandemic.” A recent US Department of Ed report found that significant numbers of low-income students are leaving Higher Ed in the wake of the financial and social pressures intensified by COVID-19. Goldrick-Rab’s research spotlights the endemic conditions of food and financial security that such students have been experiencing before COVID, and which may be contributing to this pattern.
It’s a no brainer. A hungry student is impaired in their ability to learn. While the National School Lunch Program (NSLP) ensures that at-need students in public high schools have access to at least a single meal a day, this basic security net is not available to them when they move to college. Financial aid programs simply aren’t enough to take care of hunger and financial insecurity, especially in the case of students who are single parents or who come from food-insecure families. Even the financial aid that is available for them becomes burdensome because of red tape and other hoops they must jump through. Juggling with hunger, college courses, AND financial aid office stipulations is too much to ask of them. As the title of a Hope Center Report authored by Goldrick-Rab put it, college campuses simply need to look “beyond the food pantry.”
In “Students are Human First,” Goldrick-Rab lays out the list of basic needs that colleges need to facilitate for their at-risk students. This includes providing on-campus access to public programs like “the Supplementary Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), Medicaid, and unemployment insurance.” The list also involves offering “help finding affordable housing, emergency housing, case management services, and emergency aid.” In other words, help offered by colleges must be structural, encompassing, and truly intersectional. These college programs must interface between government programs; private donors; community stakeholders; and of course, the students themselves.
Race, Gender and Ethnicity in Student Aid
Oftentimes, there are structural, informational, cultural and racial barriers that block student access to the aid provided at college campuses. Many students simply don’t know of available programs. A strong and consistent outreach program can help them become aware of the existing aid networks. Additionally, Goldrick-Rab highlights the Hope Center’s fall 2020 student survey. According to the results, different student groups based on race, gender and ethnicity had different rates of accessing campus support. “Black male students were the least likely to access campus supports conditional on need.” For instance, “at two year colleges, 68% of black male students experienced basic needs insecurity, but only 31% of them utilized campus supports.” Black female, Latinx female and Latinx male students also had significant gaps in accessing available campus programs. White male students were the most likely to access campus support. Colleges must find a way to address this gap.
Goldrick-Rab emphasizes the importance of colleges supporting vulnerable students in fair and equitable that don’t stigmatize them for their need. She recommends emergency aid programs that allow students to “make choices with dignity, rather than having to depend on the variable contents of a food pantry or the restrictions of a gift card.” Emergency aid programs enable students to meet their needs without signaling distrust. She advocates cash transfers, citing studies that show that such programs improve students’ completion odds. Goldrick-Rab stresses the values of equity and impact in such programs by reducing the red tape that students have to navigate and reducing the administrative burden placed on staff.
COVID-19 Emergency Aid
COVID-19 federal aid to students flushed the system with cash for students. The March 2020 CARES Act siphoned $14 billion into emergency student aid and colleges’ institutional costs. As Goldrick-Rab mentions in her article, Congress “provided additional funding for higher education via the Consolidated Appropriations Act, passed in December 2020, and the American Rescue Plan (ARP) Act, signed into law in March 2021.” “As of March 2021, federal relief for higher education totaled approximately $77 billion.” Yet, the gap in colleges’ ability streamline this aid for the most at-risk students shows that Higher Ed’s systems of care for vulnerable students need considerable work.
In the Hunger on College Campuses congressional hearing, Ruben Canedo, the Co-Chair of the UC Systemwide Basic Needs Committee, related his experiences as a first generation college student who grew up in poverty. He observed that all the high school conversations on college prep centered around filling out the FAFSA and other red-tape processes. No one ever held a conversation on how to help him navigate his basic needs. “When I received a Fulbright Scholarship to attend UC Berkeley, I was told that I didn’t have anything to worry about. When I got to UC Berkeley, I was told that my Fulbright Scholarship wasn’t going to cover my basic needs year-round, and that I could also not work.” Ruben used to help his family earn the basic needs income they needed through teaching martial arts. However, as a first gen. student, Fulbright scholarship rules and red tape prevented him from being able to work to cover food and rent money.
In COVID-19, one of the biggest worries of Higher Ed is how to sustain student enrollment. Taking care of at risk students’ basic needs might just be one way of doing that.
Resources for Educators
- Look at the website for the Hope Center for College, Community and Justice, which tracks Goldrick-Rab’s latest studies, political advocacy and social media platforms.
- Read Goldrick-Rab’s book, Paying the Price; College Costs, Financial Aid, and the Betrayal of the American Dream
- Watch the Sept 8, 2021 Congressional Hearing on Hunger in America: Hunger on College Campuses. Jim McGovern convened the meeting. Goldrick-Rab testified alongside other amazing activists such as Ruben Canedo, Joseph Ray, Alicia Powers, Rachel Sumekh, and others.
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