Document Tag: SNAP

SNAP Student Rules Are Not So Snappy: Lessons Learned From A Qualitative Study of California County Agency Workers (2024)

Objective
To examine the college student Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) application process from the perspective of county agency workers.

Design
A qualitative study that included semi-structured individual and group interviews (n = 14) between February and December, 2021.

Setting
Nine California counties with a University of California campus.

Participants
A total of 24 county agency workers who regularly process or advise on college student SNAP applications.

Phenomenon of Interest
Facilitators and barriers to processing student SNAP applications.

Analysis
Interviews were recorded, transcribed, and coded using thematic analysis.

Results
Five themes were identified regarding student applications: (1) a need for more consistency in policy dissemination and program administration, (2) student exemptions and the application process are perceived as challenging for students, (3) facilitators of successfully processing student applications, (4) tracking policy changes is burdensome, and (5) eliminate the student rules.

Conclusion and Implications
County agency workers perceived that students experience unnecessary barriers to accessing SNAP benefits and that implementing the student rules was taxing. Expanding SNAP access to low-income college students could be an equitable solution to mitigate the risk of student hunger while they pursue their degrees.

Which Eligible Philadelphians Are Not Accessing Public Benefits? (2023)

Across the United States, people with low incomes, meaning those who earn less than 150 percent of the federal poverty threshold ($41,207 for a family of four in 2021), may be eligible to receive public benefits. In Philadelphia, about one-third of residents have low incomes, including more than 40 percent of the city’s Chinese and Hispanic
residents and about 40 percent of its Black residents. Meanwhile, just 18 percent of white non-Hispanic Philadelphia residents have low incomes.

The public benefit system, however, doesn’t reach every eligible group equally. To better understand which Philadelphia residents receive the public benefits they are eligible for, we used data from the American Community Survey 2017–21 five-year sample to compare the demographic makeup of Philadelphians with low incomes who reported receiving benefits with that of those who did not report receiving benefits. People are counted as receiving benefits if they are in a household where at least one person reported receiving either SNAP, SSI, TANF, or general assistance.

Although these results suggest areas for improvement in outreach and engagement, benefit receipt tends to be underreported in survey data, so these findings should not be considered a definitive analysis of who does and does not receive benefits. People may also be ineligible for benefits for various reasons, including immigration status.

The Effects of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program on Community College Students’ Grade Point Average, Retention, and Graduation Rates (2023)

The purpose of this quantitative research study was to explore whether community college students who received benefits through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) outperformed those who did not receive SNAP benefits in terms of retention, grade point average (GPA), and graduation rate. The deidentified archival data collected from the College Tracker and Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) systems from fall 2018 through spring 2022 included a total of 4,127 sample size of 3,277 continuing students, 312 freshmen, and 538 transfer students who were either SNAP or non-SNAP recipients. The study’s results for each null hypothesis were reported as “fail to reject; not statistically significant” or “reject; statistically significant.” This was determined if the p-value was either higher or lower than the predetermined significance level of 0.05. As a result, of the six findings, four were not statistically significant (p>0.05), while two were statistically significant (p<0.05). The results indicated SNAP affected the retention, GPA, and graduation of part-time, SNAP-receiving students versus their counterparts who did not receive SNAP. However, for full-time, SNAP-receiving students, SNAP affected retention but did not affect GPA and graduation compared to their counterparts who did not receive SNAP during the academic periods from fall 2018 to spring 2022. The study is limited by a small sample size of SNAP students and a lack of information on other potential influencing factors such as low wages, financial difficulties, and family demographics.

The State of Food Security at CUNY in 2020 (2020)

In this report, we examine the prevalence and distribution of food insecurity at CUNY at the start of 2020. We also describe and assess the variety of programs, policies and services CUNY and its partners have developed to reduce food insecurity and suggest options for further reducing food insecurity in the coming years. Our goal is to provide the key constituencies at CUNY—its leaders, faculty and staff, students, and the City and State elected officials who fund CUNY—with the evidence they need to make informed decisions about promoting food security and academic success at CUNY. At the end of the report, we provide a brief overview of preliminary evidence on how the COVID-19 epidemic has affected food security at CUNY and the university’s options for reducing it.