More Than Just Food:
A Shared Agenda for Student Food Security and Success
This brief combines data and expertise from three leading national organizations in the student basic needs field: The Hope Center for Student Basic Needs, Trellis Strategies, and Swipe Out Hunger.
Across the datasets, a consistent picture emerges: student hunger remains widespread and interconnected with other hardships. We distill our shared evidence into five key findings and four actions institutions can take now to strengthen the affordability infrastructure students need to persist and thrive.
112,240
students
299
campuses leaders
3
surveys
Student food insecurity is not new. But the systems students rely on to afford college—and daily life—are being tested in new ways.
Students are navigating the highest costs of attendance in modern history amid rising rents, persistent food inflation, increasing healthcare costs, and growing financial uncertainty. At the same time, recent federal and state policy changes—including disruptions tied to government funding instability, the ongoing SNAP cliff, and provisions within the One Big Beautiful Bill (OBBB)—threaten to weaken many of the supports students depend on to meet their basic needs.
These pressures arrive at a pivotal moment.
Over the last decade, colleges and universities have invested significantly in food access initiatives, including campus pantries, meal-sharing programs, benefits navigation efforts, emergency aid programs, and basic needs centers. Yet national data continue to show that millions of students struggle to access enough food to support their academic success and we came together to develop a shared evidence base about the current state of student food security and the ways in which it intersects with other forms of basic needs insecurity.
Each organization brings a distinct lens to this work.
Both Trellis and The Hope Center document the prevalence and severity of student food insecurity. They also examine how food insecurity intersects with housing insecurity, mental health challenges, childcare responsibilities, transportation barriers, and student success outcomes. The Hope Center works with institutional leadership and Swipe Out Hunger works with student leaders and campus administrators to advance on-campus solutions, build an active network of advocates against college food insecurity, and change the narrative on the issue.
While our methodologies differ, our findings point toward a shared conclusion. Food insecurity:
remains widespread
intersects with other forms of hardship
cannot be solved by isolated interventions
The findings in this brief suggest that:
student need remains high,
campus supports remain essential,
and the systems designed to help students meet their basic needs require greater investment, coordination, and sustainability.
At a moment when institutions are being asked to do more with less, this brief offers a shared understanding of both the scale of the challenge and the opportunities for action.
More importantly, it offers a clear, aligned message: student hunger is not simply a food issue. Combatting it requires building systems that support basic needs affordability as a whole so students learn, persist, and thrive.
Section I: Student Hunger Remains Widespread
Section II: Hunger Rarely Happens Alone
Section III: The Support Gap
The Bottom Line
Student hunger is not inevitable.
Across the country, colleges and universities are developing innovative strategies to connect students with food, benefits, and broader systems of support. Yet no pantry, meal program, or emergency intervention can solve an affordability crisis on its own.
The findings in this report point to a simple but urgent reality: students cannot succeed academically if they cannot meet their basic needs. Addressing food insecurity requires more than food. It requires coordinated systems, sustained investment, and a commitment to ensuring that every student has the resources they need not just to enroll, but to thrive.
Suggested Citation:
The Hope Center for Student Basic Needs, Trellis Strategies, & Swipe Out Hunger. (2026). More than just food: A shared agenda for student food security and success. National Coalition for College Student Essential Needs (NCCSEN).
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