The high cost of attending college has driven universities to open, or expand, food pantries for low-income students.
When the Texas Tribune investigated, they found that “in recent years, at least 14 colleges in Texas and hundreds across the country have opened food pantries.”
The uptick has been in response to a greater concern over “food insecurity,” when students on tight budgets have to decide between a decent meal and tuition payments. Students have been squeezed more as tuition creeps up. Compared to a decade ago, tuition has increased by 40 percent as federal financial aid has skyrocketed. In Texas, the increase has been even more dramatic, as “the average cost of tuition and fees has increased more than 95 percent statewide since 2004,” the Tribune noted.
The data doesn’t have a silver lining, either. Low-income students aren’t driving the food pantry bump. If anything, they’re getting crowded out of the higher education system. In 2008, almost 56 percent of low-income high school graduates enrolled in college, according to Inside Higher Ed. By 2013, only about 46 percent of those students continued to college. Middle-income and high-income high school graduates dropped in enrollment rates, but those declines weren’t as dramatic as for low-income graduates.
Overall enrollment rates, however, are higher. Roughly 20 million students enrolled at a college in 2015, almost 5 million more students than in 2000, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. The sheer number makes food insecurity more noticeable. Colleges and universities have a richer student body than in the past, but at the same time, it’s a student body that struggles with poverty.
Colleges have improved their response to financially struggling students, but it’s a response to students who have come from a middle-class background rather than a surge of low-income students chasing a degree. College food pantries have been on the rise since 2008 as colleges have taken the problem more seriously than in the past. More than 280 colleges and universities now have food pantries.
Luckily, the increase in food pantries isn’t adding to the cost of college. Most of them get supplied through donations and partnerships with food banks or local sources. They’re a rare form of college aid that doesn’t increase tuition or costs.
