An article from Dive Brief ‘SEND HELP!’: 59% of students face insecurities around needs like food and housing

Among students who stopped-out or are in danger of doing so, 79% cited basic needs insecurities and financial challenges, the Hope Center found.

Published March 11, 2025 Laura Spitalniak Editor

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Damir Khabirov via Getty Images Listen to the article 6 min This audio is auto-generated. Please let us know if you have feedback.  Dive Brief:

• Almost three-fifths of surveyed college students, 59%, lack consistent and adequate access to food or housing, according to a new report from The Hope Center, a student-focused resource and policy center at Temple University.
• Among students who had stopped out of college or were considering doing so, 79% cited basic needs insecurities or financial challenges as their reasoning. The report defined basic needs to include housing, health care, nutritious and sufficient food, internet and technology, transportation, personal hygiene and child care.
• The Hope Center also found few students in need used campus resources available to them. Among students who reported at least one basic need insecurity, 48% didn’t know about relevant support services on their campus, according to the report.

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The Hope Center noted that students have trouble affording college and those from “structurally marginalized backgrounds” experienced basic needs insecurity more often than others. This includes Black and Indigenous students, students with disabilities, those attending college part time, Pell Grant recipients, former foster youth, and those who have previously been incarcerated.

Among Black and Indigenous respondents, almost 75% reported at least one food or housing insecurity, compared with 55% of White respondents. 

From spring 2023 to summer 2024, researchers surveyed 74,350 students from 91 colleges across 16 states. A bulk of those surveyed, 72%, attended two-year institutions. 

Survey respondents were more diverse than the national average, made up of 55% non-White students and 42% of students over age 25. Additionally, 38% of respondents received Pell Grants and 21% were students with disabilities.

Among the surveyed students, 23% said they care for at least one child, either as a parent, primary caregiver or legal or informal guardian.

Parenting students were twice as likely as students without dependents to have stopped out of college and subsequently reenrolled. They often cited child care as a factor, the report found.

Additionally, more than two-thirds of parenting students, 67%, reported experiencing housing insecurity, compared to 48% of students overall.

To address these disparities, The Hope Center urged colleges to offer centralized wraparound resources. "Students’ needs are interconnected, and comprehensive support systems are the most effective way to address them," its report said. 

Students' responses indicate that they will use support services if they know colleges offer them. For example, 64% of respondents said they would be somewhat or very likely to attend in-person counseling if they were struggling with their mental health. Additionally, 65% said a lack of awareness about resources prevented them from receiving more support for their basic needs.

Colleges should both offer and adequately publicize resource programs, the Hope Center said.

A college student in Minnesota put it simply.

“I’m trying to break generational curses and be the first college graduate in my family and it seems I’m swimming upstream," they told researchers. "I know I can do this with the right amount of knowledge, resources, and support! SEND HELP!”

The report also called for more government support to help college students meet their basic needs.

Two-fifths of students, 41%, experienced food insecurity, the report found.

“There is only fast food and gas stations on campus," one student from Tennessee told researchers. "The closest grocery store is a Publix a mile away which most of us cannot afford."

The report advised federal policymakers to overhaul and simplify the eligibility requirements for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.

Current SNAP rules make college students ineligible by default and force them to meet narrow and potentially burdensome exemptions to gain eligibility.

Lack of awareness can prevent students from receiving help. Last year, the Government Accountability Office found that 59% of students experiencing food insecurity who likely qualified for SNAP in 2020 did not receive benefits.

During the pandemic, the federal government opened SNAP to all college students who were eligible for federal work-study programs or had an expected family contribution of $0.

This expansion ended in 2023, despite policy researchers recommending that Congress adopt them permanently.

The Hope Center raised similar concerns around government housing benefits.

Among those surveyed, 48% of students reported experiencing housing insecurity and 14% said they had been homeless at least once in the past year.

"Housing prices rise, inflation increases, all while most of us work 2+ jobs for minimum wage,” a Colorado student told researchers.

But as with SNAP, federal housing assistance often excludes college students by default. The Hope Center attributed these policies to "the mistaken assumption that all college students have access to on-campus housing or are otherwise financially supported by their family."

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