Literature Review #5

 

California Community Colleges #Real College Survey by Sara Goldrick-Rab, Christine Baker-Smith, Vanessa Coca, and Elizabeth Looker in collaboration with the Hope Center

Citation

Goldrick-Rab, Sara et al. California Community Colleges #RealCollege Survey. The Hope Center, 2019, https://hope4college.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/RealCollege-CCCCO-Report.pdf.

Summary

This report reveals the prevalence and impact of food and housing insecurity among almost 40,000 students attending 57 community colleges in California in the fall of 2016 and 2018. It includes graphs of the results and reveals that around half of respondents were food insecure in the prior 30 days, 60% of respondents were housing insecure in the previous year, and 19% of respondents were homeless in the previous year. It explains that there is often an overlap between food and housing insecurity and that there are various factors that can increase someone’s risk of food and/or housing insecurity, such as race, sexuality, and parental education. The authors also discuss how food and housing insecurity can negatively impact students’ academic performance and wellbeing and provide details on the utilization of public assistance programs. 

Authors

Dr. Sara Goldrick-Rab

• She is a Professor of Sociology and Medicine at Temple University, Chief Strategy Officer for Emergency Aid at Edquity, and Founding Director of the Hope Center for College, Community, and Justice in Philadelphia. She also founded Believe in Students, a nonprofit organization that distributes emergency aid. She is an expert in food and housing insecurity in higher education and has done extensive research in the field. I have used various sources by her due to how detailed, informative, and well-researched they are.

Dr. Christine Baker-Smith

• She holds a PhD from New York University in the Sociology of Education and an EdM in Leadership, Policy, and Politics from Columbia University’s Teachers College. She is the Executive Director of the Hope Center for College, Community, and Justice. She has previous experience dealing with data/research as a lecturer in Research Methodology for the Quantitative Methods in the Social Sciences MA program at Columbia University.

Dr. Vanessa Coca

• She holds a PhD in the Sociology of Education from New York University and a BA and MA in Public Policy from the University of Chicago. She is the Director of Research for the Hope Center for College, Community, and Justice. She has previous experience conducting research and creating research reports. 

Elizabeth ”Liz” Looker

• She has a MEd in Higher Education Administration from Suffolk University and a BA in Sociology and Fine Art from Hampshire College. She is an Associate Director of Research Partnerships at the Hope Center for College, Community, and Justice. She previously worked in academic and student affairs as the Associate Director of Undergraduate Education at the MIT Sloan School of Management.

Key Terms

• Food insecurity- a lack of socially acceptable, consistent, and/or sufficient access to nutritious, safe, acceptable foods caused by a lack of financial resources
• Housing insecurity- the lack of an affordable, adequate, secure, and regular place to live or the sharing of housing due to a loss of previous housing caused by a lack of financial resources
• SNAP- acronym for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, also known as food stamps, a program that provides nutrition benefits to low-income families by helping them be able to purchase healthy food

Quotes

“Colleges seek to address students’ basic needs because food and housing insecurity undermines academic success. Housing insecurity and homelessness have a particularly strong, statistically significant relationship with college completion rates, persistence, and credit attainment. Researchers also associate basic needs insecurity with self-reports of poor physical health, symptoms of depression, and higher perceived stress” (Goldrick-Rab et al. 3)

 

“Approximately 22% of food insecure students receive SNAP. Likewise, only 8% of students who experience homelessness receive housing assistance. Medicaid or public health insurance, SNAP, and tax refunds are the supports used most often, though they remain quite low given the rates of students experiencing basic needs insecurity” (Goldrick-Rab et al. 22)

 

“According to the federal government, insufficient food and housing undermines postsecondary educational experiences and credential attainment for many of today’s college students. Data describing the scope and dimensions of this problem, particularly at the college level, remain sparse” (Goldrick-Rab et al. 3)

Value

This source will be valuable to me by revealing the prevalence of food and housing security among a large group of students. It will also help me explain how students are impacted by food and housing insecurity. I plan on using this source to develop my argument for the need for the creation and expansion of more programs to help students by explaining how many students experiencing basic needs insecurity do not gain access to public assistance, both due to not applying or not meeting the strict qualifications. I will pair it with information about Single Stop sites to explain how more efforts need to be made to help students because current methods are not working well enough and could be more effective.