Starving for an education: college students nationwide choose between textbooks and food

One Mercer student, who we will call L, is trying to finish her degree and move on in her life as soon as possible, but economic problems have delayed her graduation. She has had to drop out of college two times and has often gone hungry in order to pay the bills.

“In different occasions I’ve had to think about if it is best to use the money for food or a different purpose, like savings for tuition, transportation or rent. In most cases I choose to buy cheap and unhealthy food, most likely from a vending machine if I’m at school, or fast food.” L told The VOICE.

Having “A lack of available financial resources for food at the level of the household,” is also known as “food insecurity,” according to Feeding America’s website, and it has become a major problem for community college students as tuition and the cost of textbooks continue to rise. Also, the reliance on part-time jobs that pay minimum wage makes it nearly impossible to cover all the expenses.

L’s case is a common problem nationwide and also at Mercer. The VOICE conducted a survey of 50 students, 25 from the West Windsor Campus (WWC) and 25 from the James Kerney Campus (JKC). Sixty percent of WWC students reported they have been worried about running out of food before they got the money to buy more, while 80 percent of JKC students reported the same.

A new survey and study were conducted by Sara Goldrick-Rab, Professor of Higher Education Policy at Temple University, who has worked on this topic for several years doing research on homeless students and food insecurity. More than 33,000 students from 70 different community colleges were included in the study.

The results showed that one-third of community college students go hungry and 12 percent are homeless. Based on these results, Goldrick-Rab mentioned in an article published by NPR, “It really undermines their ability to do well in school.”

Goldrick-Rab added, “Their grades suffer, their test scores appear to be lower, and overall their chances of graduating are slimmer. They can barely escape their conditions of poverty long enough to complete their degrees.”

Multiple initiatives, programs and non-profit organizations across the country are trying to end this problem, but there is still a long way to go.

Rachel Sumekh, founder and CEO of Swipe Out Hunger, a nonprofit organization that addresses hunger among college students and currently operates in 19 states, told The VOICE via email, ”Community colleges often have a higher need population and even fewer resources to provide.”

On the VOICE survey, Nayoni Manning, a Business student at the JKC campus, wrote, “I feel like Mercer should start meal plans like 4-year institutions that is incorporated into our tuition.”

Mercer does not have any meal plans for students directly, but some student assistance programs do offer support.

One key college cost seems to connect directly to student hunger is the cost of textbooks.

An anonymous nursing student from JKC wrote on the VOICE survey, “How are we supposed to get good grades when we have an empty stomach and we need to pay like $500 for textbooks each semester?”

A number of professors and librarians at Mercer are working together to try to address this problem. Among them are Kathi Paluscio and Dylan Wolfe, Professors of Communication. They are leading Mercer’s Open Educational Resources (OER) initiative which is part of a nationwide movement and invites faculty at Mercer to use free, online, content that is diverse and offers more resources rather than relying on expensive textbooks.

Paluscio said, “We want to help faculty and students, so this way we are not only eliminating costs but also increasing the quality of the materials that can be used.”

According to the National Association of College Stores, the average price of a new textbook increased from $58 in 2011-12 to $80 in 2015-16. The cost of expenses continue growing and students need their textbooks in order to complete their assignments and leaving them with less money to spend in food and impacting their ability to succeed in class.

Professor Paluscio says, “The huge issue now is that they are so many students who don’t buy the book…There are a lot of students that don’t have the money when the semester starts. They just don’t. They pay for their classes and maybe they will buy the one book they can afford.” She added, “The students are failing classes, specifically because they waited to long to buy a textbook.”

Multiple factors can affect students and their education goals but food insecurity is persistent and hard to beat.

L told The VOICE, “It is not comfortable to ask for that kind of help as it is not a position you think you will have to face, [and] at the same time you know you are asking people that is almost in the same economic situation as you are at the time.”