Broadening the Safety Net: The Impact of Increased CalFresh Access for California College Students

• In Event: Expanding Access, Easing Burdens: Interactions Across the Nutrition Safety Net

Abstract

Research in higher education has highlighted many barriers students face to completing college degrees, such as financial barriers, limited institutional resources, and lack of preparation (Brock 2010). On top of these barriers faced by all college students, many students also struggle with food insecurity, which presents an additional obstacle to their success (Goldrick-Rab, Richardson, and Hernandez 2017). Within the UC system, 39% of undergraduate students have reported experiencing food insecurity while enrolled, with even high shares of students from underrepresented groups reporting this experience, according to the Regents of the University of California Special Committee on Basic Needs.[1] Despite the need for food assistance among this population, student eligibility for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), known as CalFresh in California, has historically been a complicated process. Individuals enrolled at least half time in college are eligible for SNAP only through meeting a pre-existing exemption (such as a disability or having a child), or by meeting the traditional work requirement of an average of 20 hours of work per week, which can be challenging to meet on top of college studies.

A recent policy in California expanded benefits to more college students by creating a new CalFresh exemption for students based on their major. As of 2017, students who are enrolled in a major that is identified by the California Department of Social Services (CDSS) as a Local Program to Increase Employability (LPIE) can fulfill their CalFresh work requirement through their program enrollment. To become an LPIE, an academic program must be government-run (thus, at a public college or university) and have an element of the existing CalFresh E&T program, a program available to CalFresh recipients, which includes improving basic skills and increasing employability. In this project, I assess whether this policy impacted student CalFresh enrollment and if so, how access to CalFresh benefits impacts student success for students enrolled in the University of California (UC) and California Community College systems. To assess the causal impact of this policy, I employ a staggered difference-in-differences design which compares students in LPIE majors (those with increased access to benefits) to similar students in non-LPIE majors, before and after the major becomes approved as an LPIE. I conduct analysis separately for UC undergraduate and graduate students and community college students, as these groups of students differ in terms of demographic breakdown, socioeconomic status, and student experience.

[1] See the full report at https://regents.universityofcalifornia.edu/regmeet/nov20/s1attach.pdf

Author

• Gabrielle Lohner, University of California, Berkeley
  Presenting Author