Document Category: Research study (not in a journal)

Arizona Student Food and Housing Insecurity (2024)

College students nationwide are increasingly facing food and housing
insecurity, issues that are often hidden and not immediately apparent. The
Hope Center’s research surveys provide the largest assessment of basic needs
security among college students in the United States, revealing that students
in Arizona are also experiencing these challenges.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services describes housing
insecurity or instability as the lack of secure shelter due to factors like “having
trouble paying rent, overcrowding, moving frequently or spending the bulk
of household income on housing.” The The U.S. Department of Agriculture
defines food insecurity as “a lack of consistent access to enough food for every
person in a household to live an active, healthy life.”
According to a study of college students in the U.S. published by the
National Institutes of Health National Library of Medicine, food insecurity is
inversely associated with degree completion and educational attainment.
Study results show that among food-insecure college students, 43.8 percent
completed their college degree compared with 68.1 percent of food-secure
college students.
Arizona’s educational attainment – the percentage of adults who earn a twoor four-year degree – is below the national average. Increasing educational
attainment is a priority for the board, as individuals with degrees not only earn
higher salaries but significantly enhance the state’s economic prosperity. To
address this, surveys were conducted at Arizona State University, Northern
Arizona University and the University of Arizona to assess student experiences
related to basic needs, particularly food and housing insecurity.
In response, student regents and the Arizona Board of Regents initiated a
tri-university work group in the 2020-21 academic year. This group was tasked
with assessing student food insecurity and housing needs, and providing
guidance on evidence-based policies and practices to address these issues.
A key recommendation, approved by the board in June 2021, requires each
university to submit an annual report detailing efforts to assess and alleviate
student food and housing needs on campus. Additional recommendations
include establishing a Basic Needs Committee at each university, and
developing a communications plan and portal to highlight and explain the
universities’ initiatives

Filling the Gap: CalFresh Eligibility Among University of California and California Community College Students (2024)

Food insecurity is widespread among college students in the United States. Food benefits
delivered through the CalFresh program, California’s version of the federal Supplemental
Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), can reduce hunger by helping students pay for
groceries, but may not reach all eligible students. To date, higher education systems have
lacked good estimates of the share of their students who are eligible for CalFresh and the
share who actually receive benefits.
To address this information gap, the California Policy
Lab (CPL) partnered with the California Community College (CCC) Chancellor’s Office,
the University of California Office of the President (UCOP), the California Department
of Social Services (CDSS), and the California Student Aid Commission (CSAC) to build a
linked database of student-level administrative data on college enrollment, financial aid, and
CalFresh participation. This database covers all students enrolled at CCC or UC campuses
from academic years 2010–11 through 2021–22, along with corresponding FAFSA
submissions and CalFresh participation. Using these data, we are able to measure how
many college students are likely eligible for CalFresh, and of those how many participate.

Is College Worth It? (2024)

Pew Research Center conducted this study to better understand public views on the importance of
a four-year college degree. The study also explores key trends in the economic outcomes of young
adults among those who have and have not completed a four-year college degree.
The analysis in this report is based on three data sources. The labor force, earnings, hours,
household income and poverty characteristics come from the U.S. Census Bureau’s Annual Social
and Economic Supplement of the Current Population Survey. The findings on net worth are based
on the Federal Reserve’s Survey of Consumer Finances.
The data on public views on the value of a college degree was collected as part of a Center survey of
5,203 U.S. adults conducted Nov. 27 to Dec. 3, 2023. Everyone who took part in the survey is a
member of Pew Research Center’s American Trends Panel (ATP), an online survey panel that is
recruited through national, random sampling of residential addresses. Address-based sampling
ensures that nearly all U.S. adults have a chance of selection. The survey is weighted to be
representative of the U.S. adult population by gender, race, ethnicity, partisan affiliation,
education and other categories.

SparkPoint Supports Student Success (2023)

Over the last decade, many Bay Area community colleges asked United Way Bay Area (UWBA) to bring SparkPoint to their campuses because students weren’t getting the holistic support they needed
to stay in school and succeed. SparkPoint offers comprehensive, integrated services that consider students’ strengths, resources, and compounding needs. SparkPoint Centers work with students to meet their basic needs, increase their income, build their credit, increase their savings, and reduce their debt.
  
Previous studies suggest that SparkPoint may contribute to improving student success, including persistence, in community colleges. This evaluation builds on the foundation of those studies and conducts a
more rigorous quantitative analysis that accounts for other factors known to influence persistence and includes comparisons with students who do not participate in SparkPoint. This study includes all San Mateo Community College District (SMCCD) students who were on a degree or certificate track during the 2018-19, 2019-20, 2020-2021, and/or 2021-22 school years. Notably, the last two years of this study were during the COVID-19 pandemic which greatly impacted students and disrupted SparkPoint services.

The study reveals substantial evidence that SparkPoint contributes to community college student success (i.e., persist, graduate, or transfer).

Homelessness and Housing Insecurity Among Community College Students: A Longitudinal Evaluation of a Housing Choice Voucher Program (2024)

Housing insecurity and homelessness among American community college students are widespread
problems that reduce the odds of college attainment and undermine students’ health and well-being.
In 2014 Tacoma Community College and the Tacoma Housing Authority launched the College Housing
Assistance Program (CHAP) to address this challenge by offering housing choice vouchers to local community college students experiencing or at serious risk of experiencing homelessness. If students could
successfully navigate the application process and local housing market, the vouchers offered a short-term
subsidy to reduce their rent and hopefully promote degree completion. Over the next several years, CHAP
received national and regional awards and became a model for affordable college housing programs. This
evaluation examines its effects on students before the housing authority ended the program in 2022.

Student Financial Wellness Survey Fall 2023 Semester Report (2024)

The Student Financial Wellness Survey (SFWS) is a self-reported, online survey that documents the
financial wellbeing and success indicators of postsecondary students across the nation. The SFWS
was designed and implemented by Trellis Strategies, starting in 2018. Since then, 3.1 million
students have been surveyed at 263 institutions in 34 states.

Marginal Returns to Public Universities (2024)

This paper studies the causal impacts of public universities on the outcomes of their marginally admitted students. I use administrative admission records spanning all 35 public universities in Texas, which collectively enroll 10 percent of American public university students, to systematically identify and employ decentralized cutoffs in SAT/ACT scores that generate discontinuities in admission and enrollment. The typical marginally admitted student completes an additional year of education in the four-year sector, is 12 percentage points more likely to earn a bachelor’s degree, and eventually earns 5-10 percent more than their marginally rejected but otherwise identical counterpart. Marginally admitted students pay no additional tuition costs thanks to offsetting grant aid; cost-benefit calculations show internal rates of return of 19-23 percent for the marginal students themselves, 10-12 percent for society (which must pay for the additional education), and 3-4 percent for the government budget. Finally, I develop a method to disentangle separate effects for students on the extensive margin of the four-year sector versus those who would fall back to another four-year school if rejected. Substantially larger extensive margin effects drive the results.

Food Fuels Futures: Expanded SNAP Eligibility Reduces Hunger Among College Students (2024)

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services declared and continually
renewed the federal Public Health Emergency (PHE) declaration starting in March 2020. Congress and the Trump and Biden administrations authorized various adjustments in SNAP to address the massive economic and health crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. In December 2020, during the PHE, Congress authorized two additional exemptions for college students, as well as other SNAP enhancements through the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021.5 SNAP eligibility was expanded to college students with low incomes who were eligible for work-study or had an expected family contribution (EFC) of $0 in the current academic year. These exemptions expired after the end of the PHE on July 1, 2023, meaning that students who met either of these criteria were no longer eligible for SNAP unless they satisfied another exemption or the work-to-eat rule. This report — informed by interviews with college students — sets forth reasons why these expansions were so vital to college students during the PHE and why decision-makers should build on these lessons and eliminate the “work-to-eat
rule” so that more college students can focus on learning rather than being distracted by hunger. Additionally, although the temporary expansions have ended, there is legislation, known as the Enhance Access to SNAP (EATS) Act, which would ensure all students with low incomes facing food insecurity could access SNAP.

Unveiling Disparities: Racial, ethnic, and gender gaps in student financial insecurity and proposed solutions (2024)

Jobs for the Future (JFF), in partnership with Trellis
Strategies, analyzed Trellis’s 2022 Student Financial
Wellness Survey of over 30,000 students from 89
schools in 23 states. Findings reveal significant
financial insecurity gaps, particularly for Black, Latine,
and women students, emphasizing the need for a
multifaceted approach, including basic needs hubs,
policy changes, and improved data collection.

Improving the education and wellbeing of student parents (2024)

Student parents, who make up approximately four million US undergraduates, are highly motivated to succeed in school but often face barriers to educational success due to logistical and financial constraints as well as mental health stressors. This randomized control trial examined the effectiveness of an education program centered in an adult workforce agency that was specifically designed to meet the needs of student parents and their families. Family-centered supportive services included coordinated parent-child schedules and childcare in addition to peer cohorts led by coaches, tuition-free courses, and additional financial assistance. Two hundred seventy-seven parents responded to online survey questions about their education and career, well-being, and parenting at baseline and approximately 1 year later (treatment n = 191, control n = 86). The racially and ethnically diverse pool of parents consisted mostly of low-income mothers aged 29 years on average who had a high school diploma or completed a General Educational Development (GED) program. After 1 year, parents in the education program were more likely to obtain at least a certificate or associate degree compared to control parents. These findings suggest that a family-focused approach is key to improving the educational success of student parents.