CADD CORNER: Food Insecurity Among College Students

By Laurie Smith, PhD

As social workers, we have all experienced the benefit of higher education leading to meaningful jobs. For most of us, getting our social work degrees involved some trade-offs: we had to find ways to cut back on expenses and perhaps take on debt to pay for our education. What if the trade-off was going hungry or without shelter?

Some students today are choosing between eating and getting an education. A report released in January 2016 from the largest four-year higher education system in the nation, the California State University system, estimated that 23percent of students had experienced concerns about having enough to eat and 10 percent had been homeless at some point (Crutchfield, 2016). This CADD Corner will focus on food insecurity among college students. The following quote (used with consent) from a student who received groceries from a campus food pantry illustrates the desperation that may be felt:

“I was in my last quarter at CSUSB… you guys were our last hope before we just accepted that we would have to stretch out our minimally stocked pantry to last us until I was able to land a job of any kind.”

Largely invisible, the problem of widespread food insecurity (defined as inconsistent access to adequate food) among students in higher education has received increased attention recently (Cady, 2014; Chaparro, et al., 2009; Hughes, et al., 2011). The impact of food insecurity on student educational success has also been detailed in the popular media (takepart, 2016).

One response to food insecurity among students is the development of campus-based food banks or other ways of collecting and redistributing food (e.g., soup kitchens or recouping fresh unused food). In the last decade more than 270 campuses have established food banks or other food resources for students in higher education according the College and University Food Bank Alliance (CUFBA, 2016). About half of the CSU’s 23 schools report some type of program for food-insecure students.

At CSU San Bernardino our School of Social Work partnered with the DEN (Delivering Emergency Nutrition), our campus-based food pantry, by placing a BASW student in the DEN for their field placement. The student, supervised by an MSW on campus, provides assessments and referrals for more long term food insecurity solutions as well as bags of groceries.

Data on numbers served and other characteristics of students who used the DEN during its first year of operation indicated there were 283 unique students who used the food bank services, most of them coming multiple times. The gender distribution reflected the campus demographics: 64 percent were female and 36 percent were male. One quarter of the recipients of services was under the age of 18, meaning that they were likely children of the students. Few of the students had jobs and nearly half were on scholarships.

Our campus experience indicates that services to address food insecurity on campus are critically needed and that social workers have a place in those services. When the CSU report recommends a single point of contact response and data indicate the need for individualized assessment and multi-system plans, they are speaking our language. We clearly need to do more to address not only food insecurity but also homelessness among our students. So take a look at what your alma mater is doing, or not doing, to address these needs. There may be opportunities to donate food, to create or contribute to scholarships based on need, to supervise social work students placed in the services, or to advocate for the establishment of services. Obtaining higher education brings rewards as well as stressors for students. Wondering where their next meal will come from should not be one of them.

REFERENCES

Cady, C.L. (2014). Food insecurity as a student issue. Journal of College & Character, Vol. 15(4), 265-271

Chaparro, M.P., S.S. Zaghloul, P. Holck and J. Dobbs (2009). Food insecurity prevalence among college students at the University of Hawai’i at Mânoa. Public Health Nutrition, 12: 2097-2103.

CUFBA (2016). Retrieved from http://www.cufba.org/member-info/.

Crutchfield, R. (2016). Serving displaced and food insecure students in the CSU. Retrieved from https://www.calstate.edu/AcadAff/documents/ServingDisplacedandFoodInsecureStudetnsintheCSUJanuary20163.8.16.pdf.

Hughes, R., I. Serebryanikova, K. Donaldson and M. Leveritt (2011). Student food insecurity: The skeleton in the university closet. Nutrition & Dietetics, 68: 27-32.

Takepart (2016). Retrieved from http://www.takepart.com/article/2015/02/06/student-hunger-college-food-banks.