Cash-strapped ACT university students say they are "dumpster diving" on a regular basis to find food, while support services report an increase in demand for meal vouchers.

Increasing rent and utility bills mean a rising number of young people are battling to make ends meet, despite income support payments and part-time work.

Fourth year arts student Louise Stockton said government allowances for students were not enough, and casual work did not cover the gap.

"I rely a lot on getting food to eat from my work and also dumpster diving," she said.

"That involves going out at odd hours and being as safe as you possibly can and trying to avoid shopkeepers.

"But it means getting essentials like bread, sometimes milk and fruit, vegetables, and it is often hard to afford those things on a weekly basis."

The Australian National University Students' Association (ANUSA) has boosted the number of meals and grocery vouchers it provides in response to burgeoning student poverty levels.

This semester it doubled the number of free grocery vouchers it gave out.

Free lunches and sanitary packs with essentials like shampoo were also being offered for the first time.

Lecturers and staff were being urged to encourage students who were living on budget food, such as two-minute noodles, to come forward.

ANUSA's Carolyn Halliday said many students could not afford basics such as healthy meals and toiletries after paying rent. ( Photo: Ruby Cornish )

"If a student's in that situation then they really are in need of food aid, their income is not enough to feed them a balanced diet," said ANUSA student assistance officer Carolyn Halliday.

"There are certainly a lot of people who are not comfortable with asking for help, so we do everything we can to make it as easy as possible, and for the food aid for example there's no application, there's no explanation required.

"They simply ask us for a meal and we give them a voucher, so there's things like that help to reduce the stigma."

Ms Stockton said she suspected many fellow students were suffering in silence.

"One of the ways of reducing stigma is to have these conversations and to get people onto these services," she said.

"And go, hey, this isn't scary, this is something that a lot of us do, and showing exactly what help is available out there."

Silent epidemic of student poverty expanding

A voluntary online survey of ANU undergraduates last year found almost 30 per cent did not have the financial resources to meet basic living needs.

Social service advocates were renewing calls for a lifting of youth allowance and other working age government payments.

"Band-aid solutions never work," warned the director of ACTCOSS Susan Helyar, while also commending ANUSA for the new assistance.

"That is why we have called for a fundamental change to the income support system, we need the base rate [of payments] to go up by $50 a week."

"We need a system that actually pays people for the cost of living and the circumstances in which they are living to make sure that they don't end up in cycles of poverty."

Ms Helyar said students who found part-time jobs often had to work long hours, which impacted on their study.

"I don't think anyone is looking for students to be living high on the hog," she said.

"What we are looking for is that students don't have to work 30 hours a week so they can afford to eat."

Advocates claim permanent government policy changes could reduce the number of university drop-outs due to disadvantage.