“College students must be properly fed and housed if they are to succeed academically” – Cal Poly Basic Needs Task Force
27% of Cal Poly students experience food insecurity and 12% experience homelessness during their college years.
These students report having worse physical and mental health along with and struggling to keep a high GPA. I think this is a startling statistic that many students, including myself, are surprised by because of how unaware many of us are to this topic on campus.
This statistic is really difficult to cope with because of the immediate relationship to our own lives, as college students. People, we are friends with, people in our classes or people we see roaming the lib are struggling to find enough meals to eat.
It’s devastating that any student should have to deal with such a difficult situation. College is hard enough and I can’t imagine how much more difficult food insecurity would make it. From not being able to focus because of hunger to having to figure out where to sleep that night when you should be studying for a midterm, this would play a huge toll on a full-time student.
“I would push myself to keep going and going and going,” says a student who struggles with food insecurity.
Although Cal Poly is a top agriculture school nationally and produces fresh produce and dairy products, we still have students who are unable to afford enough food for themselves.
Cal Poly has enacted programs to help students in these situations including the food pantry, Calfresh programs, and meal vouchers.
Although the school has developed action plans to help alleviate student food insecurity and homelessness, it still seems like there is more to be done.
I think because of our strong agriculture presence on campus there can be more initiatives to use that knowledge and availability to help solve the issue. The nutrition department uses these statistics to show students that the issue is there and it’s up to us, as the students, to do something about it.
Let's Get Aggy 