79. Offer free student housing, at public and private institutions, including community colleges.

Campus Support Programs 09.6.24

Here’s what the federal government can do:

  • The U.S. Department of Education should collect, conduct, and disseminate research on financial aid and scholarships that take into consideration a students’ legacy status.

Here’s what state government can do:

  • State legislatures should require higher education institutions to develop plans to provide housing to students with lower incomes, student parents, formerly incarcerated and justice-impacted students, and foster youth during and between academic terms.
  • State legislatures should appropriate funding for public higher education institutions to provide free housing to students with lower incomes, student parents, formerly incarcerated and justice-impacted students, and foster youth.

Here’s what institutional leaders can do:

  • Higher education institutions should provide free housing to students with lower incomes, student parents, formerly incarcerated and justice-impacted students, and foster youth during and between academic terms..
  • Higher education institutions should conduct a housing audit to assess the needs of their campus community and strengthen their existing supports.
  • Higher education institutions should ensure that information about housing support programs is shared in recruitment materials, catalogs, student handbooks, and on public websites.
  • Higher education institutions should designate liaison staff to support unhoused and foster youth in their access to student support services and community resources.

Earning a college degree without basic needs being met, such as safe housing, is extremely challenging. As the cost of tuition and fees has continued to rise — by almost 5 percent since the pandemic — students with lower incomes face barriers in accessing a place to sleep, shower, study, and live.[i] Fourteen percent of students at two- and four-year higher education institutions have reported that they were unhoused within the last 12 months.[ii] Higher education institutions are responsible for understanding the needs of their campus community and helping to meet those needs so that students are better able to persist and complete their degree.

Racial disparities persist among college students and access to housing security:[iii]

  • Native American, Black, and Latino students are far more likely to experience basic needs insecurity than their white counterparts.
  • LGBTQIA+ students are 9 percent more likely than students who are not LGBTQIA+ to experience basic needs insecurity.
  • The rate of basic needs security among students with experience in the foster care system is 21 percent higher than amongst students with no foster care experience.

[i]Institutional Characteristics component (provisional data). U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, Integrated Postsecondary Education Statistics. Fall 2022. https://nces.ed.gov/ipeds/search/viewtable?tableId=35947.

[ii]“#RealCollege 2021: Basic Needs Insecurity During the Ongoing Pandemic,” The Hope Center, March 31, 2021. https://www.luminafoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/real-college-2021.pdf.

[iii]Ibid.