College students around the country are among the tens of millions of Americans expected to lose their federal food assistance benefits on Saturday, a result of the ongoing government shutdown that will impact some of the most vulnerable populations.
North Carolina colleges expect to see increased demand for campus resources like food pantries if the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program goes on hiatus this weekend.
Durham Technical Community College’s two campuses have at least 150 students who receive benefits from SNAP, colloquially known as food stamps. Wake Technical Community College has seen nearly 800 students request free Thanksgiving meals so far this fall, nearly three times as many as last year.
“Without continued benefits, these students face significant challenges in meeting their basic needs,” Patricia Johnson, who works with many students who receive SNAP at Durham Tech’s main campus, told The Assembly.
More than 1.4 million North Carolinians, including roughly 600,000 children, receive SNAP benefits, according to state officials.
The funding for SNAP comes from federal appropriations, which have lapsed during the shutdown that began October 1. The U.S. Department of Agriculture, which administers the program, on October 11 directed the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services to delay issuing benefits for November. And last Friday, USDA told states the department could not use contingency funds to keep benefits flowing next month.
On Tuesday, N.C. Attorney General Jeff Jackson joined other attorneys general and governors in suing the USDA to force the agency to use emergency funds for SNAP.
The pause on SNAP will impact roughly 1.5 million college students across the country, said Paige Swanstein, cofounder and co-executive director of the Student Basic Needs Coalition. The nonprofit organization builds infrastructure to assist students with food, housing, and other needs during their education.
Swanstein, an alumna of N.C. State University, noted that full-time college students are generally ineligible for SNAP, though they can get an exemption to qualify if they work at least 20 hours a week, participate in work-study programs, care for a child under the age of 6, or meet other criteria.
“The reality of today’s college students is so many of them do have children, and are living on their own, and are fully financially independent, and are working 20, 30, even 40 hours a week to be able to access higher education,” Swanstein said.
Not receiving SNAP benefits next month could create significant financial strains for some students. (Any funds remaining on a recipient’s payment card from previous months can still be used.)
“During the shutdown, students are going to be forced to make really hard choices between eating, things like paying their rent, or putting gas in their car to get to class that week,” Swanstein said.
Community colleges, which serve large proportions of lower-income, working, and older adult students, are likely to take the hardest hit, Swanstein said.
Durham Tech officials told The Assembly that they don’t track the total number of students receiving SNAP. But across its campuses in Durham and Orange counties, nearly 130 students are currently participating in the More Than A Job program—a free, voluntary state workforce training and support program for SNAP recipients. There are almost certainly more SNAP recipients who are not enrolled in the program, Johnson said.
More than 20 students at the Durham campus and 10 at the Orange County campus are currently on a waitlist to be added to the job program, according to Johnson and Dorothy Yates, who works with SNAP recipients at the college’s Orange County campus.
“Without the funding provided through SNAP, these crucial layers of support are threatened,” Yates wrote in an email. “Undoubtedly, the pause in SNAP benefits will place an additional burden on program participants and we anticipate more requests for assistance.”
“Students are going to be forced to make really hard choices between eating, things like paying their rent, or putting gas in their car.”
— Paige Swanstein, Student Basic Needs Coalition
Colleges expect to fill some of the gaps through existing campus resources, like food pantries.
Wake Tech operates food pantries for students at its campuses around Wake County. The pantries are part of campus care centers that offer “wraparound” support services, assisting students with access to food, transportation, and emergency funding.
Mike Coleman, Wake Tech’s associate vice president for military, veterans, and wraparound support, said the pantry and other campus resources stay nimble to respond to events—like the COVID-19 pandemic and now the shutdown—that may lead to increased demand for services.
Roughly 6 percent of Wake County households received SNAP benefits in 2023, per U.S. Census data analyzed by the Associated Press. While Wake Tech doesn’t collect data on how many of its students receive SNAP, there’s anecdotal evidence that more students are seeking support from the college this fall. Student use of care centers is up 15 percent this fall compared to last year, Coleman said.
And that demand is likely to continue. In 2024, roughly 260 students applied for a Thanksgiving meal kit through the college’s “A Wake and Thankful” food distribution program. So far this year, Coleman said, the college has already received more than 760 applications.
At Robeson Community College in Lumberton, Samantha Oxendine, director of advising, counseling, and career services, said the pantry has also seen an increase in use this fall, including both traditional students and working parents. Thirty-two percent of Robeson County households receive SNAP, per the AP, one of the highest rates in the state.
“Students share that the cost of groceries and basic necessities has made it increasingly difficult to keep up with household expenses while attending college,” Oxendine said. “Many express appreciation for having access to the pantry as a resource that helps them stretch their budgets and stay focused on their studies.”
Robeson is requesting more donations and exploring ways to sustain supplies, including targeted drives for high-demand items, such as nonperishable food and hygiene products, and collaborations with local organizations.
But food pantries and nonprofits can’t “pick up the slack” that a pause in SNAP distribution would create, Attorney General Jackson said at a Tuesday press conference.
“Food pantries, churches, and nonprofits do great work,” Jackson said, “but they cannot scale up to meet the needs of 600,000 kids who will not have enough to eat starting next week.”
