Struggling with the basics: food and housing insecurity among college students across twenty-two colleges and universities

Abstract

Objectives

To quantify the number and type of students failing to secure basic needs.

Participants

Students attending 22 postsecondary schools in the United States in Fall 2019.

Methods

The Adult Food Security Module and part of the #RealCollege Survey were used to measure food and housing insecurity, respectively. Logistic and linear regression models were used to assess the relationship between selected factors and basic needs insecurities.

Results

Participants (n = 22,153) were classified as 44.1% and 52.3% food insecure and housing insecure, respectively. Homeless students or those who experienced childhood food insecurity were at the greatest odds of college food insecurity. Year in school was the largest contributor to being housing insecure, with PhD or EdD students being 1,157% more likely to experience housing insecurity compared to freshmen.

Conclusions

High prevalence of basic needs insecurities remain. Current campus initiatives may be insufficient, calling for a more holistic approach at the campus, state, and national levels.

Keywords:

• Basic needs
• college
• food insecurity
• housing insecurity
• student
• university

Availability of data and material

The datasets generated and/or analyzed in the current study are not publicly available but are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Competing interests

The authors have no conflicts of interest to report. The authors confirm that the research presented in this article met the ethical guidelines, including adherence to the legal requirements, of the United States of America and received approval from the Institutional Review Board at West Virginia University.

Funding details

This work was supported by West Virginia University Experimental Station Hatch no. WVA00627 and WVA00641. The funding sponsors had no role in the design of the study; in the collection, analyses, or interpretation of the data; in the writing of the manuscript; or in the decision to publish the results.