Approximately 60% of college students experience basic needs insecurity, including lacking the food and housing needed to learn and thrive. Research shows that basic needs insecurity negatively impacts students’ academic performance, sense of belonging, and persistence.
As states seek to identify and address the systematic barriers to student success, reach their state educational attainment goals, and strengthen their economies and workforce, they are recognizing the need to proactively and comprehensively address student basic needs. Several states have launched statewide efforts to better understand students’ needs and pursue changes to policy and practice to create a more affordable and supportive higher education environment.
At The Hope Center for Student Basic Needs, we have had the opportunity to assist several states in such work.
With support from The Joyce Foundation, in the series—Every State, Every Student—we draw upon these experiences and offer strategies for establishing or strengthening a statewide task force or working group and identifying policy recommendations to remove basic needs insecurity as a barrier to completing college.
We outline key considerations and decision points informed by our previous state partnerships to help set you up for success across each phase of the work:
Download the entire five-part series as a single PDF here.