The True Costs of College by Nancy Kendall & Denise Goerisch & Esther C. Kim & Franklin Vernon & Matthew Wolfgram

Author:Nancy Kendall & Denise Goerisch & Esther C. Kim & Franklin Vernon & Matthew Wolfgram
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9783030538613
Publisher: Springer International Publishing

The True Costs of Food

As an increasing number of studies have shown, college students face higher levels of food insecurity than the general population. The myth of the “starving college student” is neither a joke nor an exaggeration, and food insecurity has significant, negative impacts on college students’ academic performance, sleep, mental and physical health, and social health (El Zein et al., 2019; Henry, 2017). Yet, as Patton-López, López-Cevallos, Cancel-Tirado, and Vazquez (2014) note, food insecurity does not seem to be taken very seriously as a major academic or health threat to college students.

A number of large-scale surveys have attempted to estimate levels of four-year college student food insecurity (e.g., Broton & Goldrick-Rab, 2016; Gaines, Robb, Knol, & Sickler, 2014; Patton-López et al., 2014; Twill, Bergdahl, & Fensler, 2016) and generally find that college student food insecurity is higher—sometimes double or triple—the general public rate of food insecurity (11.1% in 2017, according to Coleman-Jensen, Rabbitt, Gregory, & Singh, 2018). A smaller number of studies have used more ethnographic approaches to learn from students about their daily experiences of food insecurity (e.g., Henry, 2017; Watson, Malan, Glik, & Martinez, 2017).

Notably, while many studies focus on students’ risk factors, there have been few studies that attempt to understand how college policies and practices—and particularly policies and practices related to the now-common university budgetary model of attempting to cover all costs or make money off of food services—impacts students’ experiences of food insecurity. When university policies and practices are discussed, studies almost always focus on small-scale efforts that universities can undertake to redistribute food (e.g., by making food that would otherwise be thrown away available to food-insecure students, allowing students to donate meals to other students, opening a campus food pantry, etc.).

Students in our study, like students in Watson et al.’s (2017) study, faced higher-than-expected food costs during college. When living on campus, costs were higher than expected because meal plans functioned in practice to: (a) limit students’ ability to claim all of their meal plan dollars, and (b) increase the additional funds students have to spend to get a full meal. As Chuck, a student at GSU, described these hidden costs: “I thought ‘I have 175 meal points; that will get me 175 meals.’ Yeah, right.” Students living off campus also often faced unexpectedly high costs as well—both because they often had to pay more than they expected for food at home, and because they often struggled to buy food on campus or bring in prepared food from home to last them throughout the day. As a result, many of the lowest-income students—whether living on- or off campus—found themselves facing food insecurity at some point during the academic year. This insecurity was often highest at the end of semesters or the academic year, right when major exams were occurring.

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