Document Category: Research Study

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.

Activating Family Safety Nets: Understanding Undergraduates’ Pandemic Housing Transitions (2024) [in press]

Safety nets are typically invisible until tested, and the COVID-19 pandemic provides an opportunity to observe how undergraduates responded to the common challenge of campus closures. Using survey data from two public universities (N=750), we investigated the factors associated with students’ reports of moving to a parent’s home as a result of the pandemic. Our findings indicate that students’ material needs stemming from loss of housing (if on campus) or employment (if off campus) significantly affected, but did not fully explain, their housing decisions. Beyond these factors, older students and those living with a romantic partner, sibling, or extended family member were less likely to move in with a parent. These findings build on research documenting class-based differences by demonstrating the importance of life stage and other social ties. Moreover, they highlight how parent-child relationships evolve during the transition to adulthood, influencing decisions to seek support in times of crisis.

The Balancing Act of Family and College: Reciprocity and Its Consequences for Black Students (2024)

Literature indicates the ways that young adults –especially those from advantaged backgrounds—rely on
parents during college and the transition to adulthood. Litle research focuses on how the Black family reaches
into college and Black college students’ provision of support to parents and other kin. Te nexus of family and
higher education is a rich site for investigating inequalities in educational atainment and outcomes. Based on
interviews with Black undergraduates, this paper analyzes variation in familial involvement during college. It
shows the ways in which Black students maintain a balancing act to meet academic responsibilities and family
obligations. Tese practices help sustain the families they value but also reproduce class inequalities. Te social organization of colleges and families imposes greater costs on disadvantaged students and ofers greater
benefts for advantaged students. Te structure of education and constructions of family diminish obligations to family, narrow family ties, and mystify aspects of dependence, especially for disadvantaged students.
Student narratives highlight the broad character of family values that ofen compete with academic obligations
and detract from college immersion. Diferent forms and paterns of assistance and connection by class and
gender are tied to structural resources and cultural diferences, such as the place of family, the meaning of self,
assessments of who counts as family, and reliance on a norm of one-way giving

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.

Food Insecurity Pipeline: How Latinx Immigration-Impacted Students in Higher Education Navigate the Food Insecurity Cycle (2024)

Systemic inequities increase the risk of material hardships, including food insecurity, among
immigrant households. Informed by 33 qualitative interviews with Latina/o/x undergraduate
students who are undocumented or U.S. citizens with undocumented parents, we examine
their experiences of food insecurity in their day-to-day lives. We find a food insecurity pipeline as
students’ experiences of food insecurity begin early in childhood in their homes and continue
in their adulthood on their college campuses. Food insecurity has implications for their wellbeing, and they rely on their strengths and networks to survive food insecurity. The study
has implications for immigration policy, practice, and higher education institutions serving this
vulnerable population.

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).

“When Someone Cares About You, It’s Priceless”: Reducing Administrative Burdens and Boosting Housing Search Confidence to Increase Opportunity Moves for Voucher Holders (2023)

Using in-depth interview data from families and service providers, we examine the success of the Creating
Moves to Opportunity (CMTO) program in Seattle, focusing on how it reduced many of the learning, compliance, and psychological costs of using housing vouchers so that participants could expand their residential
choices. CMTO’s approach of combining information and flexible financial resources with personalized
high-quality assistance bolstered participants’ confidence, agency, and optimism for their housing searches
in high-opportunity neighborhoods. Accessible, collaborative, pertinent communication from program staff
was central to addressing both the psychological costs of the federal Housing Choice Voucher program and
families’ experiences in housing and social services. These results provide evidence to inform housing policy
as well as to enrich broader scholarship on program take-up, implementation research, and the role of Navigators and service quality in addressing administrative burdens low-income families face while using other
social programs.

Financial Stress Among College Students: New Data About Student Loan Debt, Lack of Emergency Savings, Social and Personal Resources (2024)

We provide updated results about the link between student loan debt and emergency savings with financial
stress, and after conditioning for differences in social
and personal resources. We use the stress process
model framework and data from the 2020 Study on
Collegiate Financial Wellness (N = 25,310) to estimate
ordered probit regression models. The 2020 data confirm that students report higher levels of stress if they
hold more loan debt and have lower emergency savings. Students with higher levels of financial socialization and financial self-efficacy experience less financial
stress and experience more stress when they report
both positive and negative financial management
behaviors. Among student-borrowers, the role of social
and personal resources is weakened. The data confirm
ongoing financial stress among college students and
points to the important role of financial socialization
through parents and financial skill in students’ ability
to cope with financial stress.

Advancing Equity in Attainment for Black Single Mothers in College: Understanding Their Needs and Supporting Their Success (2024)

As part of its broader Student Parent
Success Initiative, IWPR conducted
original research focusing specifically on
Black single mother students. This report
summarizes findings from 25 interviews
IWPR conducted with Black single mother
community college students, consisting of
both students who were enrolled at the
time of the interview and those who had
been enrolled in the prior five years. These
interviews provide insight into how college
settings promote or inhibit the success of
Black single mother community college
students, how Black single mother students
engage with institutional resources, which
of these resources they find beneficial, and
how institutional resources can better serve
their needs.

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.