Document Author: Sara Goldrick-Rab

Request to Add Measurement of Food Insecurity to the National Postsecondary Student Aid Study (2015)

The Wisconsin HOPE Lab and the American Council on Education Center for Policy Research and Strategy strongly urge the Technical Review Panel of NCES’s NPSAS study to add measurement of food insecurity to the next administration of this key national survey. This will provide policymakers with information required to assess the efficacy of Federal Student Aid in alleviating material hardships and consider the need for new programs to alleviate hunger among undergraduates, assist practitioners in examining how affordable college really is for their students, and enable researchers to produce a more accurate picture of the economic challenges inhibiting college completion.

Below, we describe the rationale for this request and proposed survey questions, drawn from standardized models of assessment that will enable comparisons with national statistics on food insecurity in the broader population.

The Price of STEM Success: The Impact of Need-Based Financial Aid on STEM Production (2021)

This study investigates whether financial grants, allocated based on need rather than major, improves odds that economically vulnerable students will pursue science, technology, engineering, and/or mathematics (STEM) degrees. We implemented a privately-funded financial aid program in Wisconsin and conducted a randomized experiment of its effects for low and moderate-income students at 10 two-year and four-year colleges and universities. The additional financial support greatly increased the probability that students would persist in pursuing a STEM major and/or switch to a STEM major by the third year of school. However, it did not change the odds that students would remain enrolled. Implications for educational opportunity, practice, and policy are discussed.

A National Research Conference on Food and Housing Insecurity in Higher Education (2017)

The purpose of the AERA research conference award program is to break new ground in
substantive areas of inquiry, stimulate new lines of study on issues that have been largely
unexplored, or develop innovative research methods or techniques that can contribute more
generally to education research. To that end, the program hopes to foster the accumulation of
knowledge, enhance dissemination, encourage innovation, and advance studies of the highest
quality in education research.
In keeping with those goals and desired outcomes, Temple University hosted the
“National Research Conference on Food and Housing Insecurity in Higher Education” on
October 23 and 24, 2017. The conference brought together researchers from diverse
professional levels and fields to advance knowledge in a nascent area of inquiry—college food
and housing insecurity. The current state of that field is summarized in a new article in an AERA
publication, Educational Researcher, co-authored by Katharine Broton and Sara Goldrick-Rab.1
As that article explains, beyond documenting the numbers of students affected by housing and
food insecurity in college, the research field knows little about the dimensions of the challenge,
how measurement affects estimates of its scope, the associated impacts on educational
attainment, and the most effective strategies to ameliorate those problems. The Research
Conference therefore tackled each of those issues, and has already—in just a few months—
begun to evidence positive results in terms of cultivating new and innovative research studies in
the field.
This report describes the Research Conference and its participants, examines the
contours of the conversation at the conference, reports on participant feedback, and then
describes plans for subsequent research and action.

City University of New York #RealCollege Survey Report (2019)

Fall 2018 Survey.

ALMOST 22,000 STUDENTS AT
19 CAMPUSES PARTICIPATED.
THE RESULTS INDICATE:
• 48% of respondents were
food insecure in the prior
30 days,
• 55% of respondents were
housing insecure in the
previous year,
• 14% of respondents were
homeless in the previous
year.

National #RealCollege Survey Report #5: Five Years of Evidence on Campus Basic Needs Insecurity (2020)

Now in its fifth year, the #RealCollege survey is the nation’s largest, longest-running annual assessment of basic needs insecurity among college students. In the absence of any federal data on the subject, the Hope Center for College, Community, and Justice created the survey to evaluate access to affordable food and housing among college students. This report describes the results of the #RealCollege survey administered in the fall of 2019 at 227 two- and four-year institutions across the United States. It also considers the cumulative evidence on campus basic needs insecurity amassed over five surveys from 2015 to 2019. The lessons the Hope Center has learned are drawn from over 330,000 students attending 411 colleges and universities.

National #RealCollege Survey Report #6: During the Pandemic (2020)

In March 2020, the coronavirus pandemic struck American higher education.
Colleges closed campuses, students lost jobs, and emergency resources failed
to meet the demands caused by the crisis. This report examines the pandemic’s
impact on students, from their basic needs security to their well-being, as
indicated by employment status, academic engagement, and mental health.
The data come from an electronic survey completed by 38,602 students
attending 54 colleges and universities in 26 states, including 39 two-year
colleges and 15 four-year colleges and universities.

National #RealCollege Survey Report #2: Hungry and Homeless in College (2017)

Fall 2016 #RealCollege survey: 33,000 students at 70 community colleges in 24 states

We found substantially higher rates of food insecurity among community college students than previously reported, while rates of housing insecurity and homelessness were consistent with prior estimates. Our 2015 report indicated that about half of community college students were food insecure, but this study found that two in three students are food insecure. Both surveys revealed that about half of community college students were housing insecure, and 13 to 14 percent were homeless.