How Many College Students Are Going Hungry?

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How Many College Students Are Going

Hungry?
By Steve Kolowich

NOVEMBER 03, 2015

http://chronicle.com/...fIyYTgi0q0EFpU5mWLPpwF0LB1vmlJbjF4dWJzMDV5TG1VY29Xc1BTVWpkMHk5amZzRmdDbmNMaFFDamI4emJr[11/3/2015 8:36:27 AM]

How Many College Students Are Going Hungry? - The Chronicle of Higher Education

Courtesy of Christie Colasurdo

Students at Western Oregon U. can shop free at a student-run food pantry stocked with donated groceries and unused
provisions from dining halls. Christie Colasurdo, student coordinator of the pantry, surveys the inventory.

Toni Airaksinen knows that hunger can hide beneath a veneer of achievement. She worked her way to
Barnard College while growing up on food stamps.
So when she arrived at Barnard, the womens college affiliated with Columbia University, Ms.
Airaksinen suspected that some students would be waging similar battles in the shadows of the elite
universitys Manhattan campus.
"Whether youre at Columbia or youre at a community college, there will always be people struggling to
make ends meet," says Ms. Airaksinen. And when money gets tight, food is often first expense to go.
The sophomore was nevertheless struck by stories her classmates told: passing out in academic buildings
after skipping meals; eating cereal three times a day; planning their schedules around when a local
grocery store sets out free cheese samples.
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How Many College Students Are Going Hungry? - The Chronicle of Higher Education

"They would say things like, Oh, Im going to the Republicans club meeting," says Ms. Airaksinen. "I
would say, Wow, I didnt know you were a Republican. And theyd say, Im not, they have free food
there."
Colleges, including wealthy ones like

The cliche of the thrifty

student who subsists
on ramen noodles has
given way to a more
troubling portrait: the
hungry student who
needs help and may
not know how to ask
for it.

Columbia, have only recently begun to

understand how many students on their
campuses have trouble paying for food. As
college costs rise, institutional belts tighten, and
more low-income and first-generation students
enroll, the clich of the thrifty student who
subsists on ramen noodles has given way to a
more troubling portrait: the hungry student who
needs help and may not know how to ask for it.
The earliest available study of "food insecurity"
among college students was published eight
years ago at the University of Hawaii-Manoa.
Researchers found that 21 percent of students

there struggled with food insecurity, a term that refers to people who skip meals or dont get proper
nutrition because they cant afford it. A new study, focusing on first-year students at Arizona State
University, put the rate around 34 percent.
Studies on other campuses have yielded a range of figures, from 14 percent at the University of Alabama
to 59 percent at Western Oregon University.
Meg Bruening, an assistant professor of nutrition at Arizona State, attributes the variation to differences
in the sample populations. "I dont think we really have a good understanding of how big the problem
is," she says. In nearly every case, however, the rate of food insecurity among students was much higher
than the rates for the general population.

There Is Stigma, There Is Shame

Hunger often coincides with other problems that tend to get more attention. In her study of first-year
students, Ms. Bruening found that those who couldnt rely on regular meals also were more likely to
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How Many College Students Are Going Hungry? - The Chronicle of Higher Education

suffer from anxiety and depression. Other studies have tied food insecurity to low-income households and
unstable housing situations.
Like homelessness or mental-health issues, food insecurity is not always easy to notice from the outside.
When researchers at the City University of New York surveyed more than a thousand undergraduates on
17 of its campuses in 2010, 19 percent said they knew somebody at the university who had food or
hunger problems. In fact, nearly 40 percent of students were food-insecure at some level.
One reason is that students tend not to talk about it. "At the end of the day there is stigma, there is
shame, even in the low-income, first-generation community," says Ms. Airaksinen. Asking for help can
be embarrassing.
Debbie Diehm, an assistant to the vice president for student affairs at Western Oregon, remembers years
ago when a worried faculty member sent her a student who evidently had been missing meals. Ms. Diehm
offered to help the student apply for a grant from the universitys student emergency fund. But the
application form, which required only a name and a short explanation for the request, struck him as
daunting.
"He said, I just cant do that," recalls Ms. Diehm. "Filling out a one-page application for foundation
dollars was too much for that person to do, no matter what encouragement I gave."
Western Oregons student-affairs office has since started giving out gift cards for local grocery stores,
worth up to $100, to students who seek help buying food. At CUNY, where only 6 percent of
undergraduates reported using food stamps despite the high rate of food insecurity, officials on several
campuses have offered to help students navigate the sometimes complicated process of figuring out if
they are eligible for public assistance.

Student-Led Interventions
Many interventions have been led by students. At Western Oregon and elsewhere, students run campus
food pantries, stocked with donated groceries and unused food from the dining halls, where their
classmates can shop free. Campus food banks are proliferating; the College and University Food Bank
Alliance now counts more than 200 members. Often the banks are started by students, although college
officials have become increasingly interested in running them, according to Clare Cady, director of the
alliance.

http://chronicle.com/...fIyYTgi0q0EFpU5mWLPpwF0LB1vmlJbjF4dWJzMDV5TG1VY29Xc1BTVWpkMHk5amZzRmdDbmNMaFFDamI4emJr[11/3/2015 8:36:27 AM]

How Many College Students Are Going Hungry? - The Chronicle of Higher Education

At Columbia students are using technology to fight the problem. Last spring undergraduates in a campus
group dedicated to the needs of first-generation and low-income students created a Facebook page called
"CU Meal Share," where Columbia students could volunteer to swipe their classmates into dining halls.
("I can swipe people into Ferris tonight at 6:30!" wrote one student in late October, referring to a campus
eatery.) This fall a pair of undergraduates unveiled a mobile app that matches hungry students with
nearby meal donors.
The college, in a bid to encourage this kind of
student-to-student charity while also ensuring
privacy, has created a kind of virtual food bank,
the "emergency meal fund," stocked with
donated meal points. Rather than asking a
classmate for a swipe, students now can request
six free meals per semester from the fund
through a dining-hall official, no questions
asked.
Occasional free meals can help, says Ms.

At Columbia U., a pair of undergraduates unveiled a mobile

app that matches hungry students with nearby meal donors.

Airaksinen, but ultimately she sees the

emergency meal fund as a "bandage solution."
Officials have been receptive to students' concerns about food insecurity, but the Barnard sophomore has
found it disheartening to watch her classmates struggle to fulfill such a basic need.
"It is really frustrating to know that the university has so many assets, so much capital, but to realize that
theyre spending their money on things like lawn care," says Ms. Airaksinen. "Theres just so many
different ways where money that could be directed toward this issue is spent on other things."
Columbia officials pointed to the universitys generous financial aid, as well as its many outreach and
assistance programs for low-income and first-generation students including tutoring, stipends for
unpaid internships, and a closet in the career center where students can borrow nice clothes for job
interviews.
Beyond administering the emergency meal fund, officials have recently tried spreading the word about an
existing pool of money called the "deans assistance fund." Low-income students can apply to that fund
for help in covering unexpected expenses such as medical bills, winter coats, and meals during semester
http://chronicle.com/...fIyYTgi0q0EFpU5mWLPpwF0LB1vmlJbjF4dWJzMDV5TG1VY29Xc1BTVWpkMHk5amZzRmdDbmNMaFFDamI4emJr[11/3/2015 8:36:27 AM]

How Many College Students Are Going Hungry? - The Chronicle of Higher Education

breaks, when the dining halls are closed.

One Problem Among Many

Colleges have been eager to lend a hand to hungry students, but some have wrestled with the question of
how to make the problem of food insecurity a priority.
"Its a hard thing for a university to acknowledge," says Nicholas Freudenberg, a professor of public
health at Hunter College who has led CUNYs research on food insecurity. "On the one hand, the
evidence is pretty good that hungry students learn less well."
On the other, institutions might not have the resources, or the mission, to feed students in addition to
teaching them, says Mr. Freudenberg. "It means taking on one more task," he says. "So I think theres
been some ambivalence about our findings and what to do about it."
Officials at CUNY are doing a follow-up study to find out how things have changed since 2010. Mr.
Freudenberg worries that the universitys push to educate students about their eligibility for food stamps,
which has taken aim at six community colleges and one four-year institution in the CUNY system, is not
reaching enough students.
The consultations may be helping thousands of people on a handful of campuses claim a spot on the
public dole, he says, and the pantries might help them get by in a pinch, but those measures probably
havent made much of a dent in the larger problem.
"We know its still a problem," says the professor. "It hasnt gone away."
Steve Kolowich writes about how colleges are changing, and staying the same, in the digital age. Follow
him on Twitter @stevekolowich, or write to him at steve.kolowich@chronicle.com.

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How Many College Students Are Going Hungry? - The Chronicle of Higher Education

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