He doesn’t have enough to eat
36 PER CENT OF US STUDENTS DON’T GET SUFFICIENT FOOD ON CAMPUS— A HUNGER EPIDEMIC THAT’S CREEPING UP
Caleb Torres lost over 3kg his freshman year of college — and not because he didn’t like the food in the dining hall. A first- generation college student, barely covering tuition, Torres ran out of grocery money halfway through the year and began skipping meals as a result.
He’d stretch a can of Spaghetti over an entire day. Or he’d scout George Washington University ( GWU) campus for events that promised free lunch or snacks. Torres told no one what he was going through, least of all his singlemum.
“She had enough things to worry about,” he said.
Now a senior and living off- campus, in a housing situation that supplies most of his meals, Torres is finally talking about his experience with the hunger problem on America’s college campuses: a quiet, insidious epidemic that researchers say threatens millions of students every year.
According to a first- of- its- kind survey released by researchers at Temple University and the Wisconsin HOPE Lab, 36 per cent of students on US college campuses do not get enough to eat, and a similar number lack a secure place to live. The report, which is the first to include students from two- year, four- year, private and public universities, including GWU, found that nearly 1 in 10communitycollege students have gone a whole day without eating in the past month. That number was 6 per cent among university students.
What’s causing the hunger pangs?
Researchers blame ballooning college costs, inadequate aid packages and growing enrolment among low- income students — as well as some colleges’ unwillingness to admit they have a hunger problem. College hunger is not a new issue, researchers caution. But it appears to be growing worse, and not merely because college is getting more expensive.
“Prices have gone up over time,” said Sara Goldrick- Rab, a professor of higher education policy at Temple and the lead author of the report. “But the rising price is just a piece. This is a systemic problem.”
Goldrick- Rab’s report is based on data from 43,000 students at 66 schools and used the US Department of Agriculture’s assessment for measuring hunger. That means the thousands of students it classifies as having “low food security” aren’t merely avoiding the dining hall: They’re skipping meals, or eating smaller meals, because they don’t have enough money.
On top of that, the report found, 46 per cent of community college students and 36 per cent of university students struggle to pay for housing and utilities. In the past year, 12 per cent of community college students and 9 per cent of university students have slept in shelters or in places not intended as housing, or did not know where they would sleep the next night.
Misery amid luxury
With a 2017- 2018 tuition of more than $ 53,000 ( Dh194,642), and a brand- new food court hawking poke ( poh- keh) bowls and yoghurt topped with rose petals, George Washington University does not outwardly look like a placewhere students encounter hunger. Poke bowls are the new food trend with raw meat and toppings, Japanese style.
But mixed in among the Canada goose clad undergrads are students such as Torres and Emma Montero, a sophomore, who are struggling. Montero works three jobs, including a federal work- study gig designed to help low- income students cover expenses, but neither herwages nor a series of grants, scholarships and lowinterest loans have made ends meet, she said.
“I’mnot going hungry per se, but there are days I’m just not going to eat,” she said. “Today, I am kind of hesitant to buy food, because I have less than $ 100 and I need to do laundry. Do I want to domy laundry or do I want to eat today? That is the kind of question I’m dealing with.”
To alleviate these issues, GWU opened a food pantry in 2016, stocked with canned goods, produce and day- old bagels, tucked behind an unmarked door in the same food court where students flock for poke. Hundreds of schools have recently launched these sorts of pantries: Membership in the College and University Food Bank Alliance has swelled from15 in 2012 tomore than 600 today.
Free dining hall vouchers and other sops
Colleges are taking other steps as well. Some have altered their dining plans to cover more meals or to offer more lowcost options, or have begun distributing free dining hall vouchers to students who need them. Others have partnered with non- profit to redistribute unused meals to hungry students.
Michigan State University, the first school to establish an on- campus pantry, has begun screening students for food insecurity during routine visits to its campus health centre.
In New York, St. John’s University has started advertising an emergency fund that disburses small, one- time grants to students with unexpected expenses.
What can be done?
“All the great hunger efforts under way are not even half a drop in an empty bucket given the scale of this crisis ,” said Wick Sloane, a writing professor at Bunker Hill Community College in Boston who has advocated for low- income students. “All of us in higher ed know this.”
Sloane and other advocates have called on the federal government to provide free or reduced- cost meals at colleges, as is already done in primary and secondary schools.
Advocates would like to see changes to the food stamp programme to make it more available to college students. There are also calls to re- evaluate the financial aid process, with particular attention to howthe government assesses “need.”
But unfortunately, those changes will come too late for many.