Basic Needs

For the first time, the Education Department’s National Center for Education Statistics, a federal body dedicated to collecting data related to education, tracked and published information about student food insecurity and homelessness for college students. The National Postsecondary Student Aid Study (NPSAS), which was released in July and features data from spring 2020—during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic—surveyed over 100,000 students on their experiences with food and housing insecurity. The findings largely corroborate something basic needs researchers have long asserted, that college students face higher rates of food and housing insecurity than the general population. According to the Hope Center’s analysis of the NCES data, 22.6% of undergraduates and 12.2% of graduate students experience food insecurity, while 8% of undergraduates and 4.6% of graduate students experience homelessness.