What Colleges Can Do to Boost Student Participation in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program

Approximately one in four college students face food insecurity, and food insecurity is associated with negative health and academic outcomes. As the largest public nutritional program in the United States, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) is one important resource that states and colleges can use to support low-income college students. Yet SNAP eligibility rules for college students are complex, and only a small proportion of eligible students participate.

Community colleges and universities have been building capacity to connect students to on-campus SNAP application and participation supports. Institutions are increasingly adding basic needs navigators to provide some outreach on and support with SNAP. Some institutions also partner with nonprofit organizations, whose staff visit campuses periodically to offer SNAP application support. Some college basic needs offices use technology products to screen students for SNAP eligibility and connect students to other types of supports.

This brief provides an overview of how Colorado public postsecondary institutions have scaled SNAP supports. The Colorado Department of Higher Education (CDHE) and the Colorado Department of Human Services (CDHS) have both encouraged colleges to increase SNAP support capacity. In 2021, CDHE developed a Hunger Free Checklist that cites SNAP support as an essential practice and encourages colleges to adopt the practices on the checklist to become Hunger Free Campuses. CDHS’s SNAP Outreach program funded Hunger Free Colorado, a nonprofit organization, to work with five universities (and other community organizations) to build staff SNAP capacity through training and collaboration with county human services offices. This brief offers insights for college administrators and basic needs staff seeking to expand SNAP support services for students. State and local agencies working with campuses may also find these institutional strategies informative.

What SNAP Supports Did Colorado Colleges Offer?

In spring 2024, RAND researchers surveyed Colorado public institutions about what SNAP support they provide and when they began to offer such support (see Figure 1). Very few Colorado institutions conducted SNAP outreach prior to 2018, but SNAP outreach grew after that. By academic year 2024 (from 2023 to 2024), 22 colleges (out of 27 respondents) reported conducting SNAP outreach. Eleven institutions reported offering more-robust case management services around SNAP by academic year 2024.

The figure is a line chart showing the number of Colorado postsecondary institutions offering three types of SNAP support by academic year: SNAP information, SNAP application support, and SNAP case management.

SNAP information

• As of 2024, 22 postsecondary institutions in Colorado offer SNAP information.

SNAP application support

• As of 2024, 19 postsecondary institutions in Colorado offer SNAP application support.

SNAP case management

• As of 2024, 11 postsecondary institutions in Colorado offer SNAP case management.

Overall, all three types of SNAP support increased over time since 2015 or prior. SNAP information was the most common support by 2024, followed by SNAP application support, while SNAP case management remained the least common.

SOURCE: Features data from a survey of all public postsecondary institutions in Colorado conducted by RAND researchers from March to April 2024.

NOTE: The years in the ÿgure refer to academic years. For example, 2024 refers to the 2023–2024 academic year. Overall, 27 of 31 public postsecondary institutions responded to the survey: two of three technical schools, 14 of 15 community colleges, and 11 of 13 universities. Technical schools are grouped with community colleges for the purposes of this analysis.

Community colleges and technical schools were less likely to offer SNAP supports than universities (see Table 1). Only 69 percent of community colleges and technical schools offered information on SNAP, and only 25 percent offered case management. RAND researchers found SNAP information on the websites of 44 percent of community colleges and technical schools, compared with 85 percent of universities. Community colleges and technical schools face capacity constraints that limit their ability to provide support services relative to universities. This is despite these institutions serving student populations that are more likely to be SNAP eligible.

What Factors Helped or Hindered College Staff in Providing SNAP Support?

The survey data and discussions with six institutions identified as leaders in providing basic needs supports shed light on factors that helped or hindered college SNAP support efforts. Table 2 highlights some of these facilitators and barriers.

Is There Evidence That SNAP Case Management Increases College Student Participation in SNAP?

There is no prior evidence on the efficacy of SNAP case management for increasing SNAP participation among college students. To explore the relationship between case management at Colorado postsecondary institutions and SNAP participation, RAND researchers looked at how SNAP participation rates changed over time for students at institutions that did and did not offer case management. They found the following:

• SNAP case management at universities is associated with an increase of nearly 5 percentage points in SNAP participation among likely eligible students.^[1]
• No meaningful differences were detected in SNAP participation rates at community colleges and technical schools, in part because few of these institutions offered case management.
• If all Colorado community colleges, technical schools, and universities adopted case management support, it is estimated that approximately 475 additional students would participate in SNAP. This is in addition to the 360 students whose SNAP participation is associated with existing case management efforts. This means that universal case management adoption across Colorado institutions might increase SNAP participation by a total of 835 students, according to RAND researcher estimates.

Note

1. There were small samples of institutions and limited statistical power to measure these differences, and this result should be interpreted with caution. RAND researchers tested multiple specifications, varying assumptions about the timing of treatment effects and whether institutions that did not respond to the survey were control schools (did not offer case management) or excluded. Estimates ranged from 4.4 percentage points (in the primary specification) to 7.2 percentage points. For simplicity, the result is described as a nearly 5-percentage-point increase. The relationship in the primary specification was marginally significant, p = 0.065.Return to content ⤴

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Topics

• Colorado
• Food Insecurity
• Postsecondary Education
• Underserved Students