Food Assistance for UC Students

UC Schools Are Seeing A Sharp Rise In CalFresh Enrollment

By Jill Replogle, 2-23-22, LAist

On Tuesday, UCLA student volunteers and staff stacked a table with free snacks and helped students start the process of enrolling in the food benefits program CalFresh. Gina Basile, a third-year studying dance and education, dropped by to see if they could help her figure out why she hadn't been able to use her CalFresh debit card, which she got in late January.

Ten percent of California Community College students and nearly 12% of University of California undergraduate students are enrolled in the CalFresh food benefits program, according to a new report from the California Policy Lab. For the UCs, that number is a jump from a decade ago — with a pivot upward in 2016 that the report suggests is tied to increased funding for the UC Basic Needs Initiatives:

The report also found that enrollment rates were generally higher among Black, Latino and Native American students, and among students who are the first in their families to attend college.

CalFresh provides low-income students with up to $250 per month to spend on groceries. The state has estimated that as little as 18% of eligible college students are enrolled in the safety net program, even though a much larger share of students report having trouble paying for food.

"The opportunity to have these benefits has been sort of life-changing, but I haven't been able to access them," Basile said. "It's really frustrating and really scary." Basile said she and her roommates all work minimum wage jobs, which don't pay enough to support off-campus living, even with her financial aid package.

"I thought that would be enough for me until I actually started living on my own and really got a sense of my own financial responsibility," said Basile, who is the first in her family to go to college. "Also this is my first time I moved away from home and so I just want to make sure that [my parents] know that I'm OK."

Food Insecurity 'Pretty Rampant' Among College Students

Elise Dizon-Ross is a co-author of the CPL report, which she said is the first comprehensive look at which California college students are using the food assistance program, known at the federal level as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). "We knew food insecurity was pretty rampant among college students but we didn't know how many students were actually accessing these benefits," she said.

Dizon-Ross noted the wide variation in CalFresh enrollment on different campuses — for example, from a low of 7.8% of undergraduates at UC Riverside to 21% at UC Santa Barbara and 21.5% at UC Merced. She said this is likely due in part to the number of eligible students but also to the level of campus outreach and administrative support to get eligible students signed up.

Among other local UCs, just over 8% of Irvine and Los Angeles students are enrolled...

Full story at https://laist.com/news/education/uc-schools-are-seeing-a-sharp-rise-in-calfresh-enrollment.

News release from California Policy Lab: https://www.capolicylab.org/news/new-datapoint-shows-how-many-uc-and-community-college-students-received-calfresh-benefits-in-2019-20/.

Full California Policy Lab report: https://www.capolicylab.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/Student-Participation-in-CalFresh.pdf.