This volume explores the experience of hunger and food insecurity among college students at a large, public university in north Texas. Ninety-two clients of the campus food pantry volunteered to share their experiences through qualitative interviews, allowing the author to develop seven profiles of food insecurity, while at once exploring the impact of childhood food insecurity and various coping strategies. Students highlighted the issues of stigma and shame; the unwillingness to discuss food insecurity with their peers; the physical consequences of hunger and poor nutrition; the associations between mental health and nutrition; the academic sacrifices and motivations to finish their degree in the light of food insecurity; and the potential for raising awareness on campus through university engagement. Henry concludes the book with a discussion of solutions—existing solutions to alleviate food insecurity, student-led suggestions for additional resources, solutions in place at other universities that serve as potential models for similar campuses—and efforts to change federal policy.

Crutchfield, James Dubick, Amy Ellen Duke-Benfield, Sara Goldrick-Rab, Jordan Herrera, Nicole Hindes, Russell Lowery-Hart, Jennifer J. Maguire, Michael Rosen, Sabrina Sanders, Rachel Sumekh

The hidden problem of student hunger on college campuses is real. Here's how colleges and universities are addressing it. As the price of college continues to rise and the incomes of most Americans stagnate, too many college students are going hungry. According to researchers, approximately half of all undergraduates are food insecure. Food Insecurity on Campus—the first book to describe the problem—meets higher education's growing demand to tackle the pressing question "How can we end student hunger?" Essays by a diverse set of authors, each working to address food insecurity in higher education, describe unique approaches to the topic. They also offer insights into the most promising strategies to combat student hunger, including • utilizing research to raise awareness and enact change; • creating campus pantries, emergency aid programs, and meal voucher initiatives to meet immediate needs; • leveraging public benefits and nonprofit partnerships to provide additional resources; • changing higher education systems and college cultures to better serve students; and • drawing on student activism and administrative clout to influence federal, state, and local policies. Arguing that practice and policy are improved when informed by research, Food Insecurity on Campus combines the power of data with detailed storytelling to illustrate current conditions. A foreword by Sara Goldrick-Rab further contextualizes the problem. Offering concrete guidance to anyone seeking to understand and support college students experiencing food insecurity, the book encourages readers to draw from the lessons learned to create a comprehensive strategy to fight student hunger. Contributors: Talia Berday-Sacks, Denise Woods-Bevly, Katharine M. Broton, Clare L. Cady, Samuel Chu, Sarah Crawford, Cara Crowley, Rashida M. Crutchfield, James Dubick, Amy Ellen Duke-Benfield, Sara Goldrick-Rab, Jordan Herrera, Nicole Hindes, Russell Lowery-Hart, Jennifer J. Maguire, Michael Rosen, Sabrina Sanders, Rachel Sumekh

How food pantries stigmatize their clients through a discourse that emphasizes hard work, self help, and economic productivity rather than food justice and equity. The United States has one of the highest rates of hunger and food insecurity in the industrialized world, with poor households, single parents, and communities of color disproportionately affected. Food pantries—run by charitable and faith-based organizations—rather than legal entitlements have become a cornerstone of the government's efforts to end hunger. In Feeding the Other, Rebecca de Souza argues that food pantries stigmatize their clients through a discourse that emphasizes hard work, self help, and economic productivity rather than food justice and equity. De Souza describes this “framing, blaming, and shaming” as “neoliberal stigma” that recasts the structural issue of hunger as a problem for the individual hungry person. De Souza shows how neoliberal stigma plays out in practice through a comparative case analysis of two food pantries in Duluth, Minnesota. Doing so, she documents the seldom-acknowledged voices, experiences, and realities of people living with hunger. She describes the failure of public institutions to protect citizens from poverty and hunger; the white privilege of pantry volunteers caught between neoliberal narratives and social justice concerns; the evangelical conviction that food assistance should be “a hand up, not a handout”; the culture of suspicion in food pantry spaces; and the constraints on food choice. It is only by rejecting the neoliberal narrative and giving voice to the hungry rather than the privileged, de Souza argues, that food pantries can become agents of food justice.

This book explores the experiences, causes, and consequences of food insecurity in different geographical regions and historical eras. It highlights collective and political actions aimed at food sovereignty as solutions to mitigate suffering. Despite global efforts to end hunger, it persists and has even increased in some regions. This book provides interdisciplinary and historical perspectives on the manifestations of food insecurity, with case studies illustrating how people coped with violations of their rights during the war-time deprivation in France; the neoliberal incursions on food supply in Turkey, Greece, and Nicaragua; as well as the consequences of radioactive contamination of farmland in Japan. This edited collection adopts an analytical approach to understanding food insecurity by examining how the historical and political situations in different countries have resulted in an unfolding dialectic of food insecurity and resistance, with the most marginalized people—immigrants, those in refugee camps, poor peasants, and so forth—consistently suffering the worst effects, yet still maintaining agency to fight back. The book tackles food insecurity on a local as well as a global scale and will thus be useful for a broad range of audiences, including students, scholars, and the general public interested in studying food crises, globalization, and current global issues.

A “bracing and well-argued” study of America’s college debt crisis—“necessary reading for anyone concerned about the fate of American higher education” (Kirkus). College is far too expensive for many people today, and the confusing mix of federal, state, institutional, and private financial aid leaves countless students without the resources they need to pay for it. In Paying the Price, education scholar Sara Goldrick-Rab reveals the devastating effect of these shortfalls. Goldrick-Rab examines a study of 3,000 students who used the support of federal aid and Pell Grants to enroll in public colleges and universities in Wisconsin in 2008. Half the students in the study left college without a degree, while less than 20 percent finished within five years. The cause of their problems, time and again, was lack of money. Unable to afford tuition, books, and living expenses, they worked too many hours at outside jobs, dropped classes, took time off to save money, and even went without adequate food or housing. In many heartbreaking cases, they simply left school—not with a degree, but with crippling debt. Goldrick-Rab combines that data with devastating stories of six individual students, whose struggles make clear the human and financial costs of our convoluted financial aid policies. In the final section of the book, Goldrick-Rab offers a range of possible solutions, from technical improvements to the financial aid application process, to a bold, public sector–focused “first degree free” program. "Honestly one of the most exciting books I've read, because [Goldrick-Rab has] solutions. It's a manual that I'd recommend to anyone out there, if you're a parent, if you're a teacher, if you're a student."—Trevor Noah, The Daily Show

The Impact of Food Insecurity on First-Generation Female Higher Education Students seeks to emphasize the importance of mattering, belonging and effective student resources in the lives of first-generation women college students. They face unique obstacles that if not adequately addressed could impact their retention and persistence. Success in higher education relies on access to resources, connection, and a sense of meaning and purpose. Based on a yearlong qualitative study the book highlights the ways in which access to student resources, mattering and marginalization frame larger issues including mental health and food and housing insecurities. Interviewing both students and staff provides a window into Riverside's campus climate and solidifies the importance of positive interactions. First-generation women striving to matter explain a need for faculty that understand their strengths, staff that encourage them to ask for assistance, and peers that invite them to join the conversation.