Melissa Harris-Perry: Welcome to The Takeaway. I'm Melissa Harris-Perry. On Friday, a federal appeals court put a temporary pause on the Biden administration's plan to address student debt while it considers a motion brought by six states trying to stop the Biden plan. Already more than 22 million Americans have applied for the student loan relief, and the Biden administration is urging people to keep applying. While student loan debt is only one part of the economic challenges facing college students, for many there's a widespread but less visible issue - food insecurity.

According to the latest data from the Hope Center for College, Community, and Justice, in the fall of 2020, nearly three in five students lacked adequate access to basic needs like food and housing. Across both two and four-year colleges, one in three students experienced food insecurity. I'm joined now by Ryan Healy, advocacy manager at Feeding New York State. Thanks for joining The Takeaway, Ryan.

Ryan: It's a pleasure to be with you, Melissa. Thanks for having me.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Who are the students most vulnerable to experiencing food insecurity?

Ryan: Just to set the stage a little bit, if you look at pre-pandemic data from 2019 - so this is the year before the pandemic, and before the real crisis of food hardship really came about - about 10.5% of US households, or roughly 35 million Americans, were hungry and/or food insecure. Those same range of figures showed that for college students there was a staggering 30% rate of hunger and food insecurity at some point in their college careers. College students are about three times as likely to be food insecure when compared with the general population. That's a figure, I think, that just really drives home.

Here in New York State, estimates range between 40% and 50% of college students at CUNYs and SUNYs experience food insecurity. In terms of who these students are, disproportionately these students are African American, Hispanic American, Native American, first-generation students, Pell Grant recipients, students with children, and students who identify as LGBTQ+. That's just an analysis of pre-pandemic data.

In terms of who these students are as well, they're more likely to be financially independent, of a racial or ethnic minority background, living off campus with roommates working while attending school. These are students who are generally attending school trying to further their education, struggling with the high cost of education, and struggling to afford basic needs while they're pursuing their higher education.

Melissa Harris-Perry: I feel like it also reveals the ways that we misunderstand who college students are. I feel like this has been very much in the public discourse recently around the partisan battles around student loan forgiveness. There's been this language of ordinary working folks paying for these children of rich families to go off and be dilettantes on college campuses. The description that you're offering us of who college students are and the challenges they face, I think is really quite different than that perspective.

Ryan: Absolutely. That's a character that a lot of politicians will use to talk about a group that they don't feel is deserving of some human right. In this case, food. We're talking about food insecurity. The reality is that no student-- We need a cradle-to-grave series of policies that affirm food as a human right. Through childhood, through your college education, through adulthood, and of course as a senior. You're right. There is a character that's used to critique any sort of relief. Whether that's lowering the cost of higher education, whether that's canceling student debt, or whether that's expanding nutrition programs like SNAP to college students. You're absolutely right.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Let's talk a little bit about expanding SNAP to college students. The pandemic was both quite challenging for college students around food insecurity, but then there was also this sort of opening, right? Congress loosening some of the restrictions on student eligibility. Are those now going to end?

Ryan: Yes. Unfortunately, there were a lot of improvements to the SNAP program made in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. As you mentioned, SNAP benefits were temporarily extended to college-age students who previously didn't qualify during the course of the pandemic. Another factor here is that those same flexibilities in terms of responding to the pandemic also expanded the benefit allotments. Not only were more college students able to participate in SNAP, but the benefits amounts were higher. However, those are tied to the Federal Public Health Emergency Declaration, which is currently set to expire in January.

A lot of advocates in the anti-hunger community will refer to that as a hunger cliff that we're looking at. Which is that at the start of next year, assuming there is not another extension at Public Health Emergency, you'll have SNAP recipients lose an average of $80 per participant. Of course, we will return to the old pre-pandemic rigid requirements for college student participation, which currently says that students attending college at least half-time are required to work 20 hours a week if they are to participate in SNAP. Basically, you are telling students who are food insecure, "You have to work full-time in addition to your full-time studies."

Melissa Harris-Perry: In anticipation of this hunger cliff that we're facing, are there things that individual college campuses can be doing to address food insecurity?

Ryan: Right. In the absence of a SNAP program, a nutrition assistance program that recognizes the unique challenges that college students are facing when it comes to trade-offs between affording food and housing and your education and just the day-to-day necessities you need to live. College pantries are really there to fill in those gaps. Thankfully, I come and represent a state of New York that requires all public colleges and universities in the state to provide a campus pantry or alternative stigma-free way to distribute free food to hungry students. Thankfully, we do live in a state that does provide that baseline support.

However, it'll be important to continue to support pantries in terms of meeting that immediate need while we work on policies upstream that reduce just the rate of food insecurity on college campuses.

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Melissa Harris-Perry: Ryan Healy is the advocacy manager at Feeding New York State. Ryan, thanks so much for joining us.

Ryan: It's a pleasure to join you. Thanks, Melissa.

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