Ramsey Touchberry

University of Florida

At the age of 35 and caring for her 9-year-old son, Mary Baxter found herself without a place to live last summer. Forced from her apartment because of unlivable conditions and her landlord facing foreclosure, Baxter knew she needed to go back to school.

"For me, it wasn't an option," says Baxter, who received a two-year art and design degree from Community College of Philadelphia in May 2016.

Unable to afford the art schools she had been accepted to, like NYU and University of Chicago, she returned to Community College of Philadelphia in Fall 2016. Baxter wanted to further her education for a better job that would allow her to escape poverty.

"How can you feed yourself on $8 an hour with a kid and pay rent?" Baxter says. "There's no way."

Baxter's predicaments are not uncommon among community college students.

A new study by Wisconsin HOPE Lab founder Sara Goldrick-Rab and two co-authors found that thousands of community college students nationwide are homeless or on the verge of homelessness. The Wisconsin HOPE Lab says it's "the nation’s first laboratory for translational research aimed at improving equitable outcomes in postsecondary education."

The study surveyed more than 30,000 students at 70 community colleges in 24 states. It found that 13-14% of students were homeless and about half were housing insecure, meaning they've missed rent payments or couch-surf from place to place. The survey also found that two-thirds of community college students are food insecure, meaning they lack the resources to properly feed themselves.

Another recent survey found 20% of Los Angeles community college students are homeless and nearly two-thirds are food insecure. Past studies have found similarly high numbers when it comes to college homelessness across the country.

Goldrick-Rab, a Temple University professor of higher education policy and sociology, told USA TODAY College in an email that she wasn't surprised by the high number of students facing homelessness.

"I was a bit heartbroken," she wrote. "I want the real numbers to be lower than my estimates. But I strongly suspect they are not."

And Goldrick-Rab noted homeless students' commitment to their education.

"Despite being homeless, students spend as much time in class and on school topics as other non-homeless students," she wrote. "They are clearly committed to their education; their homelessness isn’t due to a lack of effort or commitment."

Baxter and her son currently sleep on her cousin's couch while she works on finishing her degree. She's five credits away from a behavioral health degree but continues to struggle with the cost, lacking a steady source of income.

"I'm an ex-felon. I have two felonies," says Baxter, who was recently awarded a fellowship for formerly incarcerated artists. "It's kind of hard for me to get employment, even after all my academic accolades."



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She says many things can be done to help struggling students. "If college prices were lower, if the minimum wage were higher and/or if colleges offered affordable housing and food options, this situation wouldn’t be so bad," she wrote. "It would also help if students could receive the same supports for food and housing in college that they receive in (K-12) education."

Some states, like Michigan and Florida, have organizations that help students afford housing. Florida has the Southern Scholarship Foundation, which provides rent-free housing for students across the state with limited financial means who maintain at least a 3.0 GPA. They award 470 rent-free scholarships to students at seven community colleges and universities across the state.

"We alleviate that financial burden of having safe and secure shelter," says Southern Scholarship Foundation President and CEO Shawn Woodin. "People who don't have a lot of resources will either borrow a lot of money and go into large amounts of debt or work 20 or more hours a week, which means the time they're working is not the time they're studying."

Woodin says although there seems to be a sudden interest in college homelessness from the community, the problem has always been there.

"We were created in 1955 because the dean of education at (Florida State University) came across students who had full scholarships, but their families didn't have the money to send them away to college," he says. "I think we're starting to get good data on just how pervasive it is."

Baxter, who's working toward her dream of helping underprivileged youth tell their life challenge stories through multimedia, wants people to simply have compassion and empathy for people in her situation.

"I don't think people really know how devastating it can be," she says. "Just having a conversation is a starting point."



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Ramsey Touchberry is a University of Florida student and a USA TODAY College correspondent.

This story originally appeared on the USA TODAY College blog, a news source produced for college students by student journalists. The blog closed in September of 2017.