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Basic needs experts say food insecurity is one of the largest barriers to college completion for low-income students.
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The U.S. Departments of Agriculture and Education have announced a partnership to address food insecurity among college students with the hope of breaking down barriers to college completion while boosting student retention and degree attainment rates.
In a joint agreement announced Nov. 7, the Department of Agriculture’s Food and Nutrition Service and the Department of Education’s Office of Federal Student Aid said they want to increase awareness of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, also known as SNAP or food stamps, through greater communication and guidance to eligible students as well as a pilot program to improve data sharing between state agencies and colleges.
Higher education policy experts and basic needs advocates say the Biden administration’s nonbinding agreement is a step in the right direction, but they are less sure of its future in a Republican-led government. “There’s definite [Republican] interest in ensuring that college students are able to access SNAP benefits when they are eligible,” said Tanya Ang, executive director of Today’s Students Coalition. But there’s always concern that an effort like this will lose steam during the change of administration, she added. “I’m optimistically hopeful, but also, having experienced many [memorandums of understanding] that have fallen through the cracks, I’m wishing this had come out sooner.”
The project comes on the heels of a recent Government Accountability Office report showing that more than two-thirds of the 3.3 million college students potentially eligible for SNAP in 2020 did not receive benefits. The memorandum aims to lower that number by expanding outreach efforts and sending at least one annual email to low-income students who may be eligible. The joint agency plan also includes a commitment to launch pilot data-sharing programs in up to 10 states, which would create better channels of communication between local SNAP agencies and colleges as they work to identify eligible students, make them aware of means-tested benefits and provide them with guidance on how to apply.
“Almost one-quarter of college students experience food insecurity, and too many of these students who qualify for SNAP are not receiving benefits,” Under Secretary of Education James Kvaal said in a news release. “This joint agreement represents the commitment of the Department of Education and USDA to work together to ensure low-income students receive all the support they need to afford and complete college.” The efforts to increase awareness among students is aided by guidance from the Education Department in July and November that addressed institutions’ legal and data privacy concerns around using financial aid data for social services outreach.
“State grant agencies and institutions are encouraged to consider how [Free Application for Federal Student Aid] data such as [the Student Aid Index] and Pell eligibility can help target outreach,” and have full authorization to do so under the recent FAFSA Simplification Act, the guidance letters say. The directives provide a sense of clarity that Bryce McKibben, senior director of policy and advocacy at Temple University’s Hope Center, a student equity research center, said will be key to the program’s success.
“The nervousness that people get around how to use data is significantly addressed by that guidance,” he said. “It’s very helpful in this larger context of SNAP and outreach around all public benefits.”
McKibben hopes that the momentum this creates at the state and institutional level, combined with a record of bipartisan support for interagency collaboration, will keep the MOU alive throughout the transition of presidential power.
“The business community, higher education institutions and workforce development providers all need our students to be able to graduate. And when they are experiencing food insecurity, they’re more likely to drop out. That’s just not using students and taxpayer resources efficiently,” he said. “I think this has a lot of policy rationale that will make sense to the new administration.”
But Democrats from the House Committee on Education and the Workforce are less optimistic, noting that Republicans have a track record of curbing access to public benefits and may not be eager to encourage more students to sign up for federal aid.
“I don’t want to say that we’re definitely concerned that they’re going to rescind it, but it’s always a possibility,” a committee aide said.
If the program does continue, both Ang and McKibben hope it goes further than its commitment to one email a year and might embed other reminders in social media posts, FAFSA completion notifications and student loan emails.
“This is a floor, not a ceiling, when it comes to the agency’s ability to do outreach on public benefits for students,” McKibben said.
