Sarah Barrett didn’t need a grand study to tell her a bunch of students on Kansas State University’s campus had been going without food.
As an assistant dean of students, she had heard enough of them talk about choosing books or housing costs over food to know that the university needed to do something to help its hungry students.
K-State students are not alone. The problem of college students’ inability to afford food is common on campuses across the country.
According to a first-of-its-kind survey of two- and four-year private and public schools, 36 percent of students on college campuses in the U.S. do not get enough to eat.
On Wednesday afternoon just after the noon lunch hour, the UMKC Kangaroo Pantry opened its doors to a short line of students needing food. Katie Garey, who manages the pantry, and a student volunteer were busy stuffing plastic bags with nonperishable food items requested by the handful of students who filled out order forms that day.
“We are pretty busy,” Garey said. “At the end of the semester, we start recognizing that students no longer have food on their meal plans or maybe their financial aid has run out or they have given up a job so they can study, so they no longer have that income.”