Educational Compromises? Food Inadequacy and SNAP among Young Adults

Despite a range of governmental programs intended to increase college access – including scholarships, tax breaks, and student loan programs – many young adults fail to meet expenses while pursuing higher education. Recent media accounts of food insufficiency and the rise of food banks on college campuses highlight this increasingly visible margin of low-income students struggling to obtain sufficient quantities of a basic resource – e.g., food – as they pursue a path towards greater future self-sufficiency.

This research seeks to examine the potential educational compromises among low-income young adults who seek to balance future investments with current food needs. For example, these young adults may focus on current labor market activities to support themselves or their families, making college entry or persistence difficult. Unless food assistance can help them smooth consumption during this period of high opportunity costs, they may be forced to invest less in their education than is socially optimal. In this work, we seek to assess whether food assistance programs currently in place for young adults are sufficient to combat educational compromises related to food access.

While many food assistance programs serve young children, the only program potentially available to young adults without children is the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). Most young adults considering or enrolled in college are labeled Able-Bodied Adults Without Dependents (ABAWDs), a category of SNAP recipient facing particular benefit restrictions: unless they consistently meet strict work requirements, recipients are only allowed 3 months of benefits in each 3-year period. By utilizing wide variation in state-level program rules – including various ABAWD-related waivers – we will estimate how differences in SNAP rules affect SNAP participation and educational attainment levels for low-income young adults. Greater support for this vulnerable group during periods of human capital accumulation could increase future earnings and ultimately make them less reliant upon social programs.

Results from this research will provide important information to policymakers in both the health and education spheres. While many program evaluations address a simple question of program effectiveness, this project will both investigate whether SNAP helps young adults make educational investments and provide policymakers with knowledge of how SNAP rules for ABAWDs affect SNAP participation by young adults. This research will help identify a potential gap in food assistance for a particular population of interest (ABAWDs ages 18-25) and explore its consequences for one of the most important decisions made during this key time in life: educational investments. To the extent that the gap in food assistance is large and consequential, our findings could suggest whether policies like longer recertification periods or ABAWD waivers could substantially improve food security, or whether more drastic measures may be needed to support young adults in order to prevent costly educational compromises.