Too poor to eat

 

http://www.fastweb.com/student-life/articles/food-insecurity-prevalent-on-college-campuses

 

It’s been brought up in class, it’s influenced by our tuition, and the students complain about it almost on the daily, yet there still hasn’t been anything done about it. You may wonder what I’m referring to. Is it the horrendous nature of attending an 8 AM? Is it that the dining hall food serves the same old thing for what feels like every day? No. It’s the issue that students can’t afford to eat properly. With the steadily rising rates of tuition, and the increasing prices of food, an injustice has occurred in which college students are unable to afford to have a balanced diet.

I’m sure you’ve heard people tell you, “you better get used to eating ramen, because that’s all you’re going to be able to afford in college.” The sad part is that that’s a relatively accurate statement for most. Think about it. According to the CSU registrar page, tuition for in-state students taking 15 credit hours, including university fees and the Colorado Opportunity Fund stipend, comes to $5279.24 per semester (1). That doesn’t include textbooks, school supplies, or additional fees for taking certain classes. Roughly $10,600 for the year just for tuition if no extra costs are tacked on. Keep in mind that textbooks can run up to $600 even if you don’t buy new—you can blame online access codes for this. According to the registrar, tuition for out-of-state students taking 15 credit hours, including university fees, is $13,633.54; this equates to roughly $27,300 for the year (1). Tack on the cost of living: personally I will be paying $555 a month with roughly $30 of utilities for a fully furnished four-bedroom apartment next year. For the 10 months I will be in school that adds up to roughly $5900 for housing. Take that into account and the total comes to $17,100 for in-state students and $33,800 for out-of-state students (do keep in mind, nonetheless, that these are estimates based off of my personal housing costs next year, and rounding of tuition and fees). Remember that doesn’t include food or other expenses that may occur such as gas or buying clothes or activities. So you might begin to see the problem here. How in the world are students going to afford food?

So yes, there are scholarships available, you can work, and if you’re blessed your parents may help you out. Still, that’s a daunting amount of money for a student to fork over, and then they still have to figure out how to afford food. In an article published by Time, it was reported that “the research, published in the Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior found that 59% of college students at a university in Oregon were classified as food insecure at some point during the last school year” (1). This research was conducted in 2014, so you can imagine this percentage has only gone up. Being food insecure is defined as “a household-level economic and social condition of limited or uncertain access to adequate food” by the USDA (1). Whilst this research was only done at one university, the data can be applied to universities as a whole. What it reveals is that over half of students are likely face food insecurity at some point in the academic year.

If you work a full-time job at minimum wage in Colorado, say working 40 hours a week, you will earn $1329.60 before taxes. Take out the $550 for housing and you have about $800 left. Seems like plenty, right? But then comes paying for school and gas. That doesn’t leave much left for food, much less quality food. Also, most students don’t end up working full-time whilst attending school, so their monthly income will be much less. That’s the issue students are facing today. With the rising costs of attending college, it is becoming harder and harder for students to be able to afford food. That’s were foods such as ramen or TV dinners become appealing. They’re cheap and filling for the most part, but they are chockfull of processed ingredients and fats and sugars that cause all kinds of issues. They are eating, but they might as well be filling their bodies with junk.

You may be saying, well if you live off-campus, then there won’t be as much of an issue. To an extent that can be true. Yes, you can coupon and go generic rather than name-brand. You can also choose to buy in bulk and go for the less-quality foods to save costs. For some this can work, but it does require a lot of extra effort. It requires clipping coupons and scouring for the best deals, knowing which brands are cheaper, and knowing how to get more bang for your buck. If you’re savvy, it is doable. But for the crazy working college student this can be an extra hassle that is just too time consuming. It shouldn’t require a lot of extra work to be able to afford food– quality food that is. Quality food should be as accessible as any food, and it shouldn’t require lot’s of saving or coupon clipping to be able to afford it either.

So what is there to do about it? For CSU 2020, there is really only one option: cut tuition prices. Is this plausible? That is unknown, but with tuition constantly rising, the issue of food insecurity amongst students is only going to increase. So CSU is going to have to figure something out. Whether that be to find funding from outside sources or figure out ways to reduce the cost of certain aspects of running the school—in my opinion I feel as though they could cut the price of housing and dining and not run into many issues (because is it really necessary to charge almost $11 per meal for the meal plan?)—something must be done if they want to be able to stop this epidemic. That’s the vision for CSU 2020 for me. It will have figured out a way to make attending college more affordable so food insecurity won’t be as big of an issue.

Works Cited

Hoyt, Elizabeth. “”Food Insecurity” Is the New Hunger & It’s Prevalent on U.S. College Campuses.” Fastweb. N.p., 17 Nov. 2015. Web. 28 Apr. 2016.

Per Semester – Fall 2015 / Spring 2016. “Fall 2015/Spring 2016 Tuition.” Undergraduate – Colorado Resident Base Tuition and Fees (n.d.): n. pag. Web. 27 Apr. 2016.

Per Semester – Fall 2015 / Spring 2016. “Fall 2015/Spring 2016 Tuition.” Undergraduate – Non-Resident Tuition and Fees (n.d.): n. pag. Web. 27 Apr. 2016.

Sifferlin, Alexandra. “It’s Not Just the Freshman 15: College Students’ Eating Issues Also Include Malnutrition.” Time. Time, 28 Jan. 2014. Web. 28 Apr. 2016.

“USDA ERS – Food Security in the U.S.: Definitions of Food Security.” USDA ERS – Food