Hippies or Hungry? Redefining College Student Need in Food Stamps and SNAP

• In Event: Race and Public Policy

Abstract

The culture wars of the 1960s and 1970s led Congress to curtail college students’ access to food stamps, but rising hunger among students and a new image of a deserving student in need led to the liberalization of access in recent reforms and a significant, although temporary, expansion of eligibility during the pandemic. In addition to the image of the “welfare queen,” Ronald Reagan and other conservatives used the image of the entitled middle class college student living in a commune using food stamps to subsidize their non-conformist culture and radical politics to play on working class resentments and build support for cutting anti-poverty programs. As governor, Reagan repeatedly pointed to a guide to qualifying for food stamps circulated by students at Berkeley as an example of gaming of the system and exploitation of tax payers. This effort culminated in numerous new restrictions on college students’ access to food stamps in 1977, including a 20 hour a week work requirement. Four out of five students were dropped from the food stamp rolls. In recent decades, as the rate of students from low income households attending college has increased while college costs have soared, hunger has become a widespread problem on college campuses. In 2019, 39% of college students reported being food insecure in the previous month. This problem disproportionately affects students of color, students who are parents, and students from foster care. While the overall participation rates of those eligible for SNAP increased steadily from the early 2000s through the aftermath of the Great Recession, less than 40% of eligible college students appear to be getting SNAP. When colleges closed most campus operations early in the pandemic, student food insecurity became even worse. Anti-hunger activists have tried to redefine the student applying for SNAP (which replaced food stamps in 2008) as someone from a disadvantaged background struggling to improve themselves and deserving of help. The pandemic era provisions liberalizing college students’ access to SNAP have expired and work requirements have been reinstated. Legislation has been introduced to permanently expand access and this issue is likely to come up in the reauthorization of SNAP in the farm bill, but it faces an uphill battle with conservatives in the House demanding cuts to nutrition assistance. This paper will explore the legacies of policy decisions made during the culture clashes of 1960s and 1970s for the development of the food stamps program and the impact of shifting class resentments and attitudes toward hunger on recent reforms and the current effort to make benefits more accessible to low income college students.

Author

• Tracy Roof, University of Richmond