Study: Students at 2-year colleges more likely to go hungry

Aug. 2 (UPI) -- A new study by the University of Illinois has found that students at two-year colleges and vocational schools are more likely to go hungry than other students.

Researchers found that students at four-year colleges do not experience the same issue of food insecurity as students at two-year colleges or vocational schools.

"The data show students who attend these schools are generally from poorer households," Craig Gunderson, an agricultural economist at the University of Illinois College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences, said in a press release.

"They don't have to live on campus in dorms with required meal plans in dining halls. In fact, they are more likely to be still living at home with their parents. If their parents are food insecure, then so are they. There is also a greater percentage of students at two-year and vocational schools who are going back to school later. They are perhaps 25 years old and already heads of their own households, working to pay for their own tuition as well as their own family's needs."

The study, published Aug. 1 in the Urban Institute journal, found that for some two-year college students, hunger is a significant problem that can impede their ability to do well in college.

Researchers believe that the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, which used to be the Food Stamp Program, is the best social safety net for students with food insecurity.

"Nearly one in five two-year college students live in a food-insecure household, but eligibility and take-up rates among college-age students are low," Gundersen said. "Policy makers may want to consider lowering the minimum number of off-campus work hours that are necessary for otherwise-eligible students to receive SNAP benefits."

The study utilized data from the Current Population Survey conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau of 60,000 households in the United States.

"With a rigorous study like the one my colleagues and I conducted, the numbers are not as dramatic, but they are more descriptive of what's actually going on," Gundersen says. "Some 13 percent of college students at four-year schools are food insecure, which mirrors the national average of the entire population. And 21 percent of students in two-year and vocational schools are food insecure. These data tell a more complete story."