Abstract
Food insecurity is a pressing concern for students in higher education. Much of the conversation surrounding this problem, however, focuses on undergraduate students. But some research finds the problem extends to graduate students. This study asks the question of how food insecurity may be affecting graduate students in public administration. A pilot study in a Network of Schools of Public Policy, Affairs, and Administration-accredited program reveals that almost one quarter of respondents are food insecure. This includes one in five students who are completing their degrees online. The survey also found an important divergence between the types of programs food-insecure students are willing to use and those to which food-secure students are willing to contribute. Given the effects of food insecurity on academic success and degree completion, this study has important implications for public administration programs.
Introduction
Food insecurity on college campuses has long been a “skeleton in the closet” (Hughes et al., 2011), although it has received a great deal more attention in the last 8 years (Goldrick-Rab et al., 2018b). Much of that attention can be credited to the work of Sara Goldrick-Rab and the Wisconsin Hope Lab for expanding research and public scholarship on food insecurity in higher education, particularly among community college students. Being food insecure is associated with a number of negative outcomes including poor health, higher odds of depression, poorer eating habits, lower grades, and lower likelihood of attaining a degree (Bruening et al., 2017; Payne-Sturges et al., 2018; Broton et al., 2014; El Zein et al., 2017; Morris et al., 2016; Hughes et al., 2011). Financial independence is a consistent predictor of food insecurity (Bruening et al., 2017), as is room sharing, reliance on government income support, familial support, budgeting behaviors, race/ethnicity, and housing insecurity (Gaines et al., 2014; Payne-Sturges et al., 2018; Pia Chaparro et al., 2009).
Although the phenomenon of food insecurity on college campuses is becoming better understood, it is still a nascent study. There is wide variation, for instance, in documented levels of insecurity across different types of institutions. Large universities tend to have lower levels of insecurity, whereas rural schools, 4-year regional comprehensives, and community colleges tend to have higher rates (Goldrick-Rab et al., 2018b; Broton and Goldrick-Rab, 2017). Some of this is due to expected variation in the students accessing these facilities (Blagg et al., 2017) and some may be due to measurement strategies (Nikolaus et al., 2019). There is little evidence, however, regarding heterogeneity in insecurity across disciplines. There have been no studies focusing on public affairs students. Furthermore, graduate students are an under-studied population (Bruening et al., 2017). When graduate students are included in study samples, their inclusion is to either yield a sample representative of the entire campus, because the entire campus population is surveyed, or because they are included in convenience sampling (Bruening et al., 2017). Thus, there is a dearth of information focused on graduate students and no studies of public administration programs.
One could assume that food insecurity would be lower among graduate public affairs students, as many master’s students are employed and pursuing their degrees in evenings, weekends, and online. Roughly half of students in master’s in public administration (MPA) and master’s in public policy (MPP) programs are enrolled part-time (NASPAA Data Center, 2018). With students increasingly choosing to pay for college costs while sacrificing their basic needs (Goldrick-Rab, 2016), however, it is important to understand whether such an assumption is correct. If it is not, then public affairs programs will need to pay more attention to the needs of food-insecure students, given the implications for those students’ academic success and physical health. It is also important to understand how to potentially help public affairs graduate students who pursue their degrees online versus residentially. Little is known about food insecurity among online degree earners.
This study seeks to begin addressing the lack of knowledge regarding food insecurity among graduate public administration programs. It presents pilot data from a program accredited by the Network of Schools of Public Policy, Affairs, and Administration (NASPAA) at a branch campus of a major research university. This study will first briefly review the extant literature on food insecurity and will draw expectations for the graduate public administration population from what is known about graduate students writ large. This is followed with a description of the survey used to assess food insecurity and how those data will be analyzed. Results will be presented and implications for public administration graduate education will be discussed. Also discussed will be the opportunities for advancing this research across campuses to gain a broader understanding of food insecurity in NASPAA schools.
Hunger on campus
A college degree has become an essential credential for many jobs in the 21st century. For public managers, a master’s degree is likewise a key credential (Cleary, 1990). Higher education, however, has been grappling with the compounding challenges of increasing enrollment by students with unmet basic needs and reductions in public financial support. The rate of low-income students enrolled in 2- and 4-year programs doubled from 1975 to 2014 (National Center for Education Statistics, 2015). At the same time, public funding for higher education stagnated during and after the Great Recession. Moreover, tuition and the cost of living in many states have increased whereas public assistance has flattened or declined (Chingos et al., 2017). As a result, students are increasingly forgoing their basic needs in the pursuit of higher education (Goldrick-Rab, 2016). Scholars and institutions of higher education are only now coming to grips with the prevalence of this problem. Over the past decade, scholars have sought to systematically understand who is most likely to experience food and housing insecurity and how it affects students personally and academically.
Much of the research on food insecurity focuses on undergraduate samples, although graduate students have been included in some studies. One of the most consistent findings is that food insecurity is highest among students who are financially independent. Students still receiving support from their parents—be it through direct provision of food and housing and/or payments for tuition, room, and board—tend to be more food secure (Bruening et al., 2017). A large-scale study of community college students found that one-third of students who experienced food insecurity were both working and receiving financial aid (Goldrick-Rab et al., 2017). Students receiving government support and/or financial aid are also more likely to be food insecure (Micevski et al., 2014; Gaines et al., 2014; Olauson et al., 2018), although students are reluctant to utilize public assistance even if they qualify for it (Broton and Goldrick-Rab, 2017). In a South African sample, students were found to be more likely to experience food insecurity at the end of the semester than the beginning (Munro et al., 2013). This is a time when meal plans are running out and living expenses have taken their toll on earnings and savings. College students who are single parents (many of them women) are more likely to experience food insecurity, as are women on the whole when compared to men (Maroto et al., 2015; Bruening et al., 2016; Goldrick-Rab et al., 2018b; Olauson et al., 2018). There is also mixed evidence that food insecurity is more prevalent among racial minorities (Bruening et al., 2016; Morris et al., 2016; Pia Chaparro et al., 2009; Van den Berg and Raubenheimer, 2015; Freudenberg et al., 2011; Payne-Sturges et al., 2018). There is a high prevalence of food insecurity among first-generation college students and those who were formerly in foster care (Dubick et al., 2016; Goldrick-Rab et al., 2017; Goldrick-Rab et al., 2018b). Collectively, the groups highlighted above reflect the growing demand for and access to higher education butting up against structural inequalities in American society (Royce, 2018).
Food insecurity has serious effects on the physical and mental health of students. Food insecure students are more likely to report losing weight (Hughes et al., 2011), although that outcome is endogenous with the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) measure of food insecurity. They are of poorer general health (Hughes et al., 2011; Patton-López et al., 2014; Gallegos et al., 2014; Farahbakhsh et al., 2017), report eating less healthful food such as fruits and vegetables (Farahbakhsh et al., 2017; Gallegos et al., 2014), are less likely to eat breakfast (Bruening et al., 2016), and are found to have a higher fat mass (Atiqah et al., 2015). In general populations, food insecurity is linked with high triglycerides and cholesterol (Seligman et al., 2009), important precursors for heart disease, although the evidence of this is mixed in student populations (Booth and Anderson, 2016; Atiqah et al., 2015). In terms of mental health, food-insecure students are more likely to report depression (Bruening et al., 2016; Freudenberg et al., 2011), anxiety, disordered eating, and thoughts of suicide (Goldrick-Rab et al., 2015), have lower self-esteem, and greater substance use and conflict with romantic partners (Lin et al., 2013).
The physical and mental effects of food insecurity among college campuses spill over into the classroom. Hungry students are fatigued and have trouble concentrating (Munro et al., 2013; Farahbakhsh et al., 2017). They have lower grade point averages (Patton-López et al., 2014; Maroto et al., 2015; Morris et al., 2016; Wooten et al., 2019) and are more likely to defer their studies (Gallegos et al., 2014) or withdraw from university (Silva et al., 2017; Phillips et al., 2018). Thus, food insecurity is a substantial barrier to success in higher education.
The prevalence of food insecurity and its effects among specific sub-populations of students, such as graduate students, are less well understood (Bruening et al., 2017). The substantial work done by the Wisconsin Hope Lab, for example, focuses on community college students (Goldrick-Rab et al., 2015; Goldrick-Rab et al., 2017; Goldrick-Rab et al., 2018b). Many samples—be they convenience or population studies—do not include graduate students. For those that do, the results are mixed. Some find higher food insecurity among graduate students (Maguire et al., 2016), others lower or no difference depending on whether they are compared to all undergraduates or specific classes (Wooten et al., 2019). One study of a food bank program in Canada did find that users were more likely to be graduate students (Farahbakhsh et al., 2015; Farahbakhsh et al., 2017). These students also reported using loans, increased work hours, credit cards, delaying buying school supplies, receiving food from friends/relatives, and delaying paying other bills as means of coping with their food insecurity. There is also disagreement over whether international students differ from domestic students. In some cases they are less secure, in others more secure (Goldrick-Rab et al., 2018b; Olauson et al., 2018). Finally, there have been no studies specific to public administration graduate students. Although it is reasonable to expect that their insecurity would reflect that of the broader graduate student population, this is an untested assumption.
Programs to address food insecurity
There are several options for addressing food insecurity on college campuses, but little research on their effectiveness (Bruening et al., 2017). Perhaps the most ubiquitous is a campus food pantry (Goldrick-Rab et al., 2018a). Although making food available to students helps reduce hunger, it does not always eliminate fundamental financial needs. Moreover, pantries are often underfunded, run by volunteer help, and have limited hours (Goldrick-Rab et al., 2018a). They suffer from a lack of campus awareness and reluctant utilization due to stigma (Sabi et al., 2019; Goldrick-Rab et al., 2018a) Thus, they may not well serve many MPA and MPP students who are completing their degrees at night. School-based pantries also do not serve online student populations at all, although such students may have access to a non-profit run food pantry in their community. Other approaches to addressing food insecurity include grocery scholarships, where students receive money specifically for the purpose of buying groceries; special meal plans (akin to the K-12 free and reduced lunch program); means-discounted room and board; and meal vouchers. Recognizing student under enrollment and the additional requirements for college students seeking public assistance (Broton and Goldrick-Rab, 2017; Lower-Basch and Lee, 2014), some colleges even counsel students on applying for programs such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children.
Beyond solid research, the voice of both food-secure and food-insecure students and their preferences for these programs is sometimes missing from the discussion of how to address food insecurity. The place for the food-insecure voice is more straightforward, for a program to be successful users must be willing to engage. In fact, public administration is more aware than other disciplines as to the value of co-production in the effective delivery of goods and services (Bovaird, 2007). Therefore, the voice of food-secure students is also relevant. Campus food pantries, for example, tend to be collective enterprises. They may be coordinated by campus student services staff, but food can be provided by non-profit and food drives on campus among students, faculty, and staff. Furthermore, options such as grocery scholarships, food vouchers, and food reclamation programs require the engagement of school administration and food service staff. Thus, addressing food security requires engagement of a network of actors, including both food-secure and food-insecure students who engage as coproducers. Additionally, reduced-price meal plans, meal vouchers, and grocery scholarships are provided by universities and colleges and represent a redistribution of tuition dollars from food-secure to food-insecure students. Thus, there may be more resistance among food secure students for options such as these, in comparison to on-campus food pantries. Successful implementation of food security measures is thus a collective enterprise, not simply a top-down policy choice by administrators, and student preferences are important to measure.
Research questions
Given the mixed state of much of the literature on food insecurity, and the lack of focus on students in schools of public affairs and the online community, this study addresses the following research questions: 1) Are food insecurity rates lower in graduate public administration programs than in other undergraduate samples? 2) Does sex, student status (full-time or part-time), modality (residential or online), citizenship, age, or employment status relate to differences in food insecurity among public administration students? 3) What programs are food-secure students willing to support and what programs are food insecure students willing to use?
Before examining data that provide tentative answers to these questions, the survey instrument and analysis methodologies will be presented.
Methods
Most food insecurity studies use surveys to capture the needs of students either on a single campus or across several institutions. Typically, these surveys have relied on population-based and convenience samples. This study followed suit by sending surveys to 283 online and 53 residential MPA students in November 2018. The study was reviewed and approved by the Penn State Institutional Review Board. An initial recruitment contact and three follow-up contacts were used to increase response rates. Additionally, respondents entered a raffle for one of 20 US$50 Visa gift cards as an incentive to complete the survey. 1 At the close of data collection, 36% (121) of those contacted responded to the survey. This is far higher than the often single or low-double digit response rates of other population-based food insecurity surveys (e.g., Wooten et al., 2019).
Measuring food insecurity
In 1995, the USDA’s Economic Research Service implemented its first US Adult Food Security Survey Module. Their survey seeks to determine the number of US households that experience food insecurity. It is typically asked at the household level but has been adapted to apply to individual students (Goldrick-Rab, 2018). It is a staged questionnaire with 10 questions. The first stage asks respondents if in the last 30 days the following were often true, sometimes true, or never true: I worried whether my food would run out before I got money to buy more. The food that I bought just didn’t last, and I didn’t have money to get more. I couldn’t afford to eat balanced meals.
If respondents answer never true to all three, they do not receive the rest of the questions. If they answer “often true” or “sometimes true” to any, they are asked the next stage of questions: In the last 30 days, did you ever cut the size of your meals or skip meals because there wasn’t enough money for food? (Yes/no) [If yes to 4] How often did this happen? (Almost weekly or daily; some weeks but not most; only 1 or 2 days) In the last 30 days, did you ever eat less than you felt you should because there wasn’t enough money for food? (Yes/no) In the last 30 days, were you ever hungry but didn’t eat because there wasn’t enough money for food? (Yes/no) In the last 30 days, did you lose weight because there wasn’t enough money for food? (Yes/no)
If the respondent answers yes to any of questions 6, 7, and 8, then they are asked the final stage: In the last 30 days, did you ever not eat for a whole day because there wasn’t enough money for food? (Yes/no) [If yes to 9] How often did this happen (Almost weekly or daily; some weeks but not most; only 1 or 2 days)
All responses other than “no” and “never true” are coded with a 1. This yields a sum of responses ranging from 0 to 10. The USDA further assigns the scores to four food security categories: High food security (0) Marginal food security (1–2) Low food security (3–5) Very low food security (6–10)
This is the measure of food insecurity employed in the survey.
Student policy preferences
To assess what programs students would consider using, the following question was asked: Please choose which of the following potential programs that you would be willing to An on-campus food pantry An off-campus food pantry A room and board cost-reduction program A reduced-cost meal program Meal vouchers for use on campus Grocery scholarships Food stamps (Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program) No programs
To assess the programs that students would consider contributing to, they were asked: Please choose which of the following potential programs that you would be willing to An on-campus food pantry An off-campus food pantry A food-recovery program that recovers unused cafeteria food for distribution Increased student fees to provide food and/or housing assistance (e.g., vouchers, reduced-cost meals, scholarships) No programs
Analysis methodology
The intent of this study is not to make causal claims about the sources of food insecurity, but it is to explore first whether food insecurity is even a problem among public administration graduate students and then whether food insecurity varies in ways expected by the extant literature. Thus, t-tests and chi-square tests are used to examine differences in food insecurity by sex, student status (full- or part-time), modality (residential or online), citizenship, age, and employment status (whether employed and hours worked per week). Additionally, summaries of student preferences for programs they would use and contribute to are included. For the clearest comparison, however, only responses by food insecure students are summarized for programs students would use and only responses by food secure students for program contributions. Before presenting the results of these analyses, the characteristics of the sample and its comparison to other NASPAA programs is provided.
Characteristics of the respondents
Of those that responded, all lived off-campus: 16% lived alone, 14% lived with a roommate, 5% lived with parents, and 65% had another situation—most often living with a spouse and/or immediate family. Most (97, or 80%) were completing their degree online. A total of 73% of respondents were completing their degree part-time, which is far higher than the NASPAA average of roughly 50% (NASPAA Data Center, 2018). This is driven by the fact that the online student population is substantially larger than the residential at the campus studied. Furthermore, 79% of respondents were employed full-time.
Figure 1 shows that 94% of the respondents paid for their food with their own job. Only 5% relied on their parents and only a handful relied on public assistance. This is substantially different than undergraduate samples, where more students rely on parents, loans, and credit cards to pay for food. What is similar, however, is the low reliance on public assistance programs, even among students who may qualify (Broton and Goldrick-Rab, 2017). Respondents reported working an average of 42 hours per week, in addition to their studies. The average age was 34 years. The set of respondents disproportionately identified as female (63%), which is typical of NASPAA schools (NASPAA Data Center, 2018). Also typical of NASPAA schools, 67% identified as white, meaning 33% were “persons of diversity,” per NASPAA terminology. This is slightly higher than the 30% reported by NASPAA in academic year 2016–2017 (NASPAA Data Center, 2018). Finally, 10% of the sample identified as noncitizens, compared to a 5% in NASPAA schools. Thus, there is a substantial bias in the sample in terms of part-time students, but relatively small differences on other demographics compared to other NASPAA schools. This means that the sample is largely comparable to other public administration programs, recognizing the part-time student bias.

Methods students use to pay for food.
Food insecurity results
The primary results of this study are found in Table 1. Of those that responded to the survey, 23% reported experiencing some level of food insecurity. This is on par with many large and flagship universities (Goldrick-Rab et al., 2018b), although it still means that almost one in four graduate students surveyed experienced some level of food insecurity in the last month. Most of the insecurity tended to be low or marginal, but 5% of respondents reported a high level of insecurity. It is also necessary to point out that this could mean that the sample undercounts food insecurity. This is possible due to the higher than NASPAA average number of part-time students in the sample. At least in community college samples, part-time students tend to be more food secure than full-time (Goldrick-Rab et al., 2018b). In this sample, 90% of students with part-time status were working full-time. Whereas only 52% of full-time status students were working full-time. The remainder of full-time students were either working part-time (24%) or not working at all (24%). Those students would presumably be the most vulnerable unless they are receiving additional support from family or significant others. Thus, rates of insecurity across NASPAA schools with larger full-time student populations could in fact be higher.
Public administration student food insecurity broken down by demographics, modality, and work status.
a Statistically significant χ2 (categories) or F-test (means), p < 0.10
Two sub-analyses were conducted on populations that receive little attention in the research on food insecurity: international students and online students. Table 1 shows international students had higher rates of security than domestic students, although there was no statistically significant relationship between citizenship status and food insecurity, χ2 (n=121) = 1.60, p = 0.69. It is important to note that these students were not asked whether they had access to food that they preferred (e.g., halal meats). This is a challenge faced by international students and future studies of food insecurity should take this into account (Brown, 2016).
As mentioned above, a substantial portion of this program’s students take their courses online. There are presently no studies of food insecurity in the online student population. Table 1 shows that fewer online students report being food insecure (21%) compared to residential students (33%). The difference does not meet a conventional threshold for statistical significance (χ2 (n=121) = 6.53, p = 0.08), but it may be substantively important, as will be discussed below. There are also no statistically significant relationships between food insecurity and age, employment status, hours worked, and student status.
Program preference results
Figure 2 shows what programs food-insecure respondents would be willing to use. Of the options, 50% reported a willingness to use grocery scholarships. Roughly a quarter to a third of respondents supported options ranging from an in-house pantry to meal vouchers. This should not be surprising, as residential students benefit more from programs such as an in-house pantry, room and board reductions, meal programs, or meal vouchers, whereas grocery scholarships offer a means for schools to also help off-campus residential and online students who are food insecure. The lowest support was for the SNAP program. It is unclear whether this is due to stigma, low knowledge about SNAP, or ineligibility. Finally, 36% of food insecure respondents marked that they would use none of these programs.

Programs that food-insecure students would use.
Figure 3 reveals an important divergence between programs that food-insecure students would use and those to which food-secure students would contribute. The lowest level of support among contributors was for increased student fees. Meaning, although food-insecure students are more likely to use tuition-funded mechanisms, food-secure students are least likely to be willing to contribute to them.

Programs to which food-secure students would contribute.
Discussion
This study is the first to present evidence that public administration graduate students are experiencing food insecurity at rates on a par with undergraduate students at large flagship institutions. Almost a quarter of the sample experienced food insecurity in the previous 30 days. Such insecurity can range from missing a few meals to running out of food before the end of the month to losing weight because of a regular lack of food. Graduate students, even those who are working an average of 40 hours a week, are not immune to forgoing basic needs to pay for their education (Goldrick-Rab, 2016). The question for public affairs programs, and higher education more broadly, is what to do about these problems. What responsibility do schools have to these students? Accessibility to higher education expanded greatly in the 20th century, but it has also brought college to the reach of students who are struggling financially. Higher education is supposed to be an avenue for economic mobility (Chetty et al., 2017), but food insecurity threatens the ability of students to succeed academically and complete their degrees. Many MPA and MPP students are mid-career and are seeking to move into management positions. They may be sacrificing present needs for promised future benefits. If, however, the amount of sacrifice makes it harder to attain their degree, students can find themselves in a worse position—debt or reduced savings with no additional degree (ICAS, 2018; USDOE, 2015).
These results are important for public administration educators. There is not only a moral imperative for higher education to help struggling students, but there is clear evidence that food insecurity is a barrier to academic success and degree completion. It is hard to study and focus when you are hungry. Imagine the difficulty in doing well academically if this is a chronic condition. In fact, educators are now being encouraged in include basic needs statements in their syllabuses and to become allies of students who are food and housing insecure (Goldrick-Rab et al., 2018a). Such demands on faculty are layered on top of already busy teaching and research loads. But beyond the moral dilemma, there is a practical concern for public administration programs. Given that programs are judged based on metrics such as degree completion rates and time to degree attainment, food insecurity can serve as a substantial, although generally invisible, barrier to achieving on those metrics. This means that without an awareness of the effects of food insecurity, programs struggling with degree completion could be blind to how to improve their outcomes.
Public affairs programs and their home institutions have tools available to help, but this study also finds a disjuncture between programs that food-insecure graduate students are willing to use and those that food secure students are willing to contribute to. Moreover, including online students in the sample reminds us that there are no one-size-fits-all solutions to food insecurity. Online students appear to be more secure than residential ones, but a sizeable portion still face food insecurity. Alas, solutions such as on-campus food pantries and meal vouchers do not work for online students. More research is needed on the online population within public administration and beyond, as it has been largely ignored.
Granted, this is a study in only one program, which is a clear limitation. It is likely that the lack of statistically significant differences in food insecurity across characteristics of the respondents in Table 1 is due to the small sample size. Additionally, much as the study of undergraduates, there is likely variation across schools based on the types of students they serve, but the burgeoning research on undergraduates suggests the program is likely not absent at any institution. Additional research needs to be done across public administration programs to better understand the extent of this problem and the degree to which it varies. NASPAA could be a leader in this area by prioritizing a study of food, as well as housing, insecurity across its programs. Of course, the development of solutions would ultimately reside within individual schools and/or programs.
Public affairs graduate programs need to become aware of this growing problem in higher education. A disproportionate share of the attention in food insecurity discussions is on undergraduate students. But graduate students also struggle with supporting themselves and their studies, even if they are working. Programs that struggle with retention should consider whether students are leaving due to factors such as food insecurity. They should also work with their institutions to develop solutions that recognize the diverse needs of the graduate student population.
Footnotes
Acknowledgements
The author would like to thank the editor and anonymous reviewers for their feedback on this article and the Justice and Safety Institute for contributing the Outreach and Community Engagement funds that supported this survey.
Declaration of conflicting interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work was supported by The Justice and Safety Institute’s Outreach and Community Engagement Fund.
