Unmet Non-Tuition Needs Among College Students in the First-Year: Food Insecurity, Homelessness, and Year-3 Outcomes

• In Event: College Affordability and Student Success: Evidence on Policies to Address Non-Tuition Costs and Student Basic Needs

Abstract

Food insecurity and homelessness are increasingly recognized as barriers to student success, but most research offers only a snapshot of hardship, often at one institution or across a limited set of institutions. As a result, we know too little about whether basic-needs insecurity early in college fades, persists, or predicts later academic and material challenges. Colleges and policymakers need nationally representative longitudinal evidence on whether early need predicts continued vulnerability.  Focusing on first-time beginning students, this study uses nationally representative longitudinal data on students entering postsecondary education in 2019–20 to examine how first-year food insecurity and homelessness were associated with hardship, cumulative GPA, and enrollment status by Year 3. We ask four questions: how food insecurity and homelessness changed between Year 1 and Year 3; whether first-year hardship predicted later hardship in the same or another domain; whether first-year hardship was associated with cumulative GPA; and whether it was associated with later enrollment status.  Using the NCES Beginning Postsecondary Students Longitudinal Study (BPS:20/22), we conducted two transition analyses, eight longitudinal logistic regression models predicting Year-3 hardship from first-year hardship, two linear regression models predicting cumulative GPA through AY 2021–22 from first-year hardship, and descriptive and logistic analyses of enrollment by AY 2021–22, adjusted for baseline demographics and sector.  In the first year of college, 20.1% of students experienced food insecurity and 8.9% experienced recent homelessness. By Year 3, both hardships showed persistence and change. Food insecurity was especially durable: among students who began in very low food security, about half remained in low or very low food security by AY 2021–22, and nearly 40% remained in the most severe category. Among students who experienced recent homelessness in Year 1, nearly one-quarter reported homelessness in Year 3. Adjusted longitudinal models reinforced these patterns. Students food insecure in Year 1 had 3.28 times the odds of food insecurity in Year 3, while students who experienced first-year homelessness had 4.40 times the odds of later homelessness. First-year food insecurity predicted later homelessness (OR = 2.77), and first-year homelessness predicted later food insecurity (OR = 2.12).  In the adjusted GPA model, first-year food insecurity, but not first-year homelessness, predicted lower cumulative GPA by Year 3: students with marginal, low, and very low food security had GPAs about 0.06 to 0.09 points lower than students with high food security. Early hardship also predicted later non-enrollment: students with very low food security and students who experienced homelessness in Year 1 had higher odds of not being enrolled at the Year-3 follow-up (OR = 1.460 and OR = 1.254).  Basic-needs insecurity early in college is not simply a temporary disruption. It is a strong marker of later material hardship, academic disadvantage, and non-enrollment. These findings support early screening, sustained intervention across students’ college careers, and a policy approach that treats food and housing hardship as interconnected rather than isolated challenges.

Authors

• Muhammad Kara, Temple University
  Presenting Author

• Sara Renee Abelson, Temple University
  Non-Presenting Co-Author