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Food insecurity is widespread among college students in the United States. Food benefits delivered through the CalFresh program, California's version of the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), can reduce hunger by helping students pay for groceries, but may not reach all eligible students. To date, higher education systems have lacked good estimates of the share of their students who are eligible for CalFresh and the share who actually receive benefits. To address this information gap, the California Policy Lab (CPL) partnered with the California Community College (CCC) Chancellor's Office, the University of California Office of the President (UCOP), the California Department of Social Services (CDSS), and the California Student Aid Commission (CSAC) to build a linked database of student-level administrative data on college enrollment, financial aid, and CalFresh participation. This database covers all students enrolled at CCC or UC campuses from academic years 2010-11 through 2021-22, along with corresponding FAFSA submissions and CalFresh participation. Using these data, researchers are able to measure how many college students are likely eligible for CalFresh, and of those how many participate. This report was updated in August 2024 with updated eligibility statistics that reflect results from a refined simulation of student eligibility for CalFresh. Using the improved simulation, the researchers found that among California Community College students, 20% of students were eligible for CalFresh (an increase from the 16% estimate in the June version of this report), among University of California (UC) undergraduates, 33% were eligible (an increase from 31% in the June report), and among UC graduate students, 7% were eligible (an increase from 6%).

America's labor market presents a paradox. Although the unemployment rate is just 3.9%, there are more jobs open than people who can fill them. Nationwide, there are roughly 68 workers for every 100 open jobs. Many factors contribute to this workforce shortage, but one of the most significant is a growing skills gap -- millions of workers across the economy are unprepared for in-demand employment opportunities. In construction and other industries, employers are hurting, desperate for talent, and looking for innovative ways to attract people to open positions. Recent data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) show that the construction industry currently has 407,000 job openings. This shortage is expected to grow, with a projected need for 723,000 workers annually due to economic expansion, worker retirements, and the changing skill needs driven by energy transitions and technological advancements. Some 88% of construction firms report having a hard time finding workers to hire. To address this challenge, employers in construction and other industries are investing in workforce development -- working to ensure current and future workers have the skills needed to succeed in high-demand careers. But employers can't do it alone. And although federal funding is available to support skill development, it is not nearly enough. Just $28.2 billion out of a total $139.5 billion allocated annually for postsecondary education and training is spent on workforce development. This policy brief estimates current federal spending on postsecondary workforce education and training and compares these funding levels to funding for traditional academic programs. This brief explores how investment in workforce education today compares to in investment in recent decades. Finally, it offers examples of how four states are investing in workforce education and offers policy recommendations for stakeholders and policymakers to consider for the future. [This report was co-produced by Procore with support from the Construction Advocacy Fund.]

Food insecurity is widespread among college students in the United States. CalFresh food benefits, known federally as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, can help students in California pay for food, but may not reach all eligible students. To better measure student participation in CalFresh, the California Policy Lab (CPL) partners with the California Community College system (CCC), the University of California Office of the President (UCOP), the California Department of Social Services (CDSS), and the California Student Aid Commission (CSAC). Through this partnership, CPL has created a linked database of student-level administrative data on college enrollment, financial aid, and CalFresh participation that makes this analysis possible. This data point provides estimates of CalFresh participation rates among community college and University of California (UC) students in California. In the academic year 2020-21 (June 2020-May 2021), the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, 10.6% of CCC students, 12.3% of UC undergraduate students, and 6.3% of UC graduate students participated in CalFresh. While the share of community college students participating in CalFresh increased slightly since 2019-20, the total number of students participating in the program -- approximately 205,000 community college students -- represents a decrease of about 21,000 students from the 2019-20 school year due to overall enrollment declines in the community college system. CalFresh participation rates and counts increased for UC undergraduate and graduate students overall, with over 29,000 undergraduates and nearly 4,000 graduate students participating in CalFresh.

Government agencies collect vast amounts of administrative data in their day-to-day activities, primarily for program operations. But the information is less often used as a research tool or fully harnessed for its evidence-building potential. This brief is the fourth in a series of publications from MDRC about the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) Data Innovation (TDI) project, initiated by the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) in 2017. It describes TDI's efforts to transform federal TANF and employment data into an integrated resource for evidence-informed program management and policymaking. Such efforts are rarely an easy lift. Creating the data resource required deliberate federal investments and the resolution of many technical, legal, and security issues by the TDI team, which was led by MDRC in collaboration with Actionable Intelligence for Social Policy, Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago, and the Coleridge Initiative. This brief describes how the team tackled this challenging project. Although the work was focused on the TANF program, the lessons learned may be useful for members of federal and state agencies, researchers, and advocates of evidence-informed policy making interested in unlocking the potential of administrative data. [Additional creators of this report are the Actionable Insights for Social Policy at the University of Pennsylvania and Coleridge Initiative.]

In spring 2023, The Research and Planning Group for California Community Colleges (The RP Group) partnered with the CEO Affordability, Food & Housing Access Taskforce of the Community College League of California (CCLC) to assist in survey data collection efforts and provide updated data trends regarding California Community College (CCC) students' food and housing security. Over 66,000 students from 88 California Community Colleges responded to the survey, revealing that two out of every three CCC students grapple with at least one basic needs insecurity. Nearly half of CCC students are food insecure, almost 3 out of 5 are housing insecure, and about 1 in 4 are homeless. The first section of the report describes the overall rates of basic needs insecurity across all survey respondents, as well as variations in these rates across colleges and regions. The report's second section further describes rates of basic needs insecurity by specific groups of students. The third section details associations between students' work and academic experiences and their basic needs insecurity. Finally, the fourth section reports the utilization of public assistance by students who need support. [Katie Brohawn, Tammeil Gilkerson, and Alyssa Nguyen contributed to this report.]

In 2022, the Center for the Study of Social Policy and Project SPARC conducted research to better understand the barriers experienced by parenting students participating in CalWORKs, California's cash assistance program for families with children. This brief highlights findings from the research on parenting students' experiences with housing.

In 2022, the Center for the Study of Social Policy and Project SPARC conducted research to better understand the barriers experienced by parenting students in CalWORKs, California's cash assistance program for families with children. This brief highlights findings from the research on parenting students' experiences transferring to four-year institutions.

Earning a college degree has long been critical to unlocking many high-paying jobs -- and, as a result, to economic mobility and security. Increasingly, however, the traditional "norm" of a college student--one who enrolls straight out of high school, receives some support from their parents, lives on campus, and does not have substantial work or family responsibilities outside of school--does not fit the reality of much of the student population. Today, students who are themselves parents make up a significant percentage of those enrolled in college. While promoting student-parent success has mainly been left to institutions of higher education, several states have considered or adopted a range of policy initiatives to support student parents in postsecondary education. This paper provides state policy stakeholders, including governors, state agencies, and advocates, with a snapshot of the multitude of issues faced by student parents and with options to utilize state policy to address these issues.

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) helps people with low incomes avoid hunger and afford food. It stimulates the economy, improves individuals' success at school and work, and promotes better health. SNAP's Employment and Training (E&T) program is designed to assist participants in gaining skills, training, or work experience that helps them obtain regular employment. States operate these programs and have flexibility in the services they provide, who receives them, and the entities that deliver these services. However, SNAP E&T has onerous restrictions and entrenched biases that most hurt communities of color. Several policies are rooted in racism and classism. By perpetuating systems of oppression, SNAP E&T pushes critical nutrition aid out of reach. These obstacles keep the program from serving as a supportive pathway to opportunity. In this report, we analyze these challenges and offer recommendations to advance racial equity within SNAP E&T and make it function more effectively.

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) helps people with low incomes avoid hunger and afford food. It stimulates the economy, improves individuals' success at school and work, and promotes better health. At the federal level, SNAP is operated by the Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) at the U.S. Department of Agriculture. SNAP's Employment and Training (E&T) program is designed to assist participants in gaining skills, training, or work experience that help them obtain regular employment. States operate these programs and have flexibility in the services they provide, who receives them, and the entities that deliver these services. However, SNAP E&T has onerous restrictions and entrenched biases that most hurt communities of color. Several policies are rooted in racism and classism. By perpetuating systems of oppression, SNAP E&T pushes critical nutrition aid out of reach. These obstacles keep the program from serving as a supportive pathway to opportunity. In the full report "Strategies to Improve the Effectiveness of SNAP's Employment and Training Program," the Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP) analyzes these challenges. This executive summary provides key findings from the report, along with federal recommendations, state recommendations, and suggestions as to how leaders can make SNAP E&T more effective by ending racist harms.

Trellis' Student Financial Wellness Survey (SFWS) seeks to document the financial well-being of post-secondary students and provide institutions with a detailed profile of the financial issues their students face, some of which could potentially impact their success in college. This report details aggregated findings for the 89 colleges and universities across the country that participated in the fall 2022 implementation of the survey. [For "Student Financial Wellness Survey: Fall 2021 Semester Results. National Aggregate Report," see ED625724.]

Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) is a federal program that provides funding for states to implement and administer cash assistance to families who meet eligibility and work requirements, as well as provides funds for a wide range of other activities like education and training activities (US DHHS, 2023). TANF is funded by a block grant, meaning states receive a sum of money that can be allocated to allowable activities at the state's discretion. States have discretion to determine many aspects of TANF eligibility. This has resulted in significant variation across states in terms of eligibility requirements, time limits, and the amount of cash assistance a family receives (Knowles, Dehry, Shantz, & Minton, 2022). This brief aims to add to the literature by describing results from a series of longitudinal analyses using Federal TANF data from 28 states. Caseload dynamics are examined in multiple ways in these analyses; key state and household characteristics are included in analyses to identify any notable differences across subgroups. These findings are preliminary and were conducted to demonstrate how Federal TANF data can be used to conduct longitudinal research that offers important insights into TANF participation over time. Specifically, linked longitudinal TANF data allow us to examine households' full trajectories of TANF benefits over time, how quickly households are returning, and what characteristics may be associated with exiting and returning to TANF. Implications for TANF programs and future research efforts are discussed.

Food insecurity is widespread among college students in the United States. Food benefits delivered through the CalFresh program, California's version of the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), can reduce hunger by helping students pay for groceries, but may not reach all eligible students. To date, higher education systems have lacked good estimates of the share of their students who are eligible for CalFresh and the share who actually receive benefits. To address this information gap, the California Policy Lab (CPL) partnered with the California Community College (CCC) Chancellor's Office, the University of California Office of the President (UCOP), the California Department of Social Services (CDSS), and the California Student Aid Commission (CSAC) to build a linked database of student-level administrative data on college enrollment, financial aid, and CalFresh participation. This database covers all students enrolled at CCC or UC campuses from academic years 2010-11 through 2021-22, along with corresponding FAFSA submissions and CalFresh participation. Using these data, we are able to measure how many college students are likely eligible for CalFresh, and of those how many participate. CalFresh eligibility does not perfectly overlap with student need. Some students who are food insecure may not be eligible for benefits, while some eligible students may not be in great need. This in part reflects the rules of the program, which are designed to capture need but do not always do so perfectly. We attempt to measure eligibility according to the actual rules. Our estimates complement other work that uses survey data to measure students' basic needs (California Community Colleges League, 2022). We estimate that in Fall 2019, on the eve of the COVID pandemic, 16% of California community college students (256,000 students), 31% of UC undergraduate students (69,000 students), and 6% of UC graduate students (3,000 students) were likely eligible for CalFresh benefits. However, the majority of these students did not receive benefits -- only 30% of eligible community college students, 22% of eligible UC undergraduates, and 29% of eligible UC graduate students were actually enrolled in CalFresh. We emphasize that our eligibility determinations are estimates based on information available in existing data, which imperfectly capture some elements of the CalFresh eligibility determination process. They may somewhat overstate or understate student eligibility. However, extensive investigation led us to conclude that the errors are likely not large and that our estimates are a good approximation of the share of students who would be found eligible under individualized determinations. As we discuss below, the higher eligibility rate among UC undergraduates as compared to CCC students reflects program rules that make it easier for UC students to qualify than for CCC students with similar resources. We also find differences in eligibility across groups of students within each segment, reflecting both variation in need and program rules. Among both CCC and UC students, Black and Hispanic students, for example, are more likely to be eligible than are White or Asian American students, and students receiving federal, state, or institutional financial aid are much more likely to be eligible than are students not receiving aid. Benefits receipt generally mirrors this, although there are differences across groups in the share of eligible students who receive benefits. The take-up rate, which is the share of eligible students who participate in CalFresh, is higher for Black students (and, at the UC but not at CCCs, Hispanic students) than for White students, and for students on financial aid than for students who are not. Our report indicates there is much room to improve CalFresh participation among eligible students. Through detailed analyses of the paths to eligibility and of variation in participation rates, we hope to shed light on opportunities for policymakers, higher education administrators, community-based organizations, student groups, and advocates to better connect eligible students to benefits. [Additional support was provided by the Woven Foundation.]

Weakening federal assistance programs that provide children with affordable health care, nutritious food, stable housing, and early childhood education by imposing funding cuts, work requirements, unreasonable time limits, and other unnecessary bureaucratic barriers undermines access to services for low income families and undercuts opportunities for their children. These actions often hurt children with the greatest need, creating categories of deservedness of children that negatively impact their well-being and harm their short-term and long-term success. Holding children back in this way has adverse consequences for the economy and doesn't reflect the values of the nation. This document is an update to the 2018 brief, "The Harmful Consequences of Work Requirements and Other Obstacles on Families with Children" [ED603487], and explains how work requirements would weaken the effectiveness of assistance programs by increasing disparities for children in marginalized communities and undermining child health, nutrition, housing stability, economic security, and early childhood development.

The higher education to workforce pipeline is crucial for our country's economic growth and longevity. However, almost half of students who enroll in college fall off and never complete. The outcomes are even starker for students from low-income backgrounds who face high levels of unmet needs and barriers to completion while in school. Ensuring that the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) supports postsecondary education and access, both for enrolled students and SNAP participants who could enroll, would better support higher education outcomes that can lead to a stronger workforce and economy. In its first analysis focused on student basic needs and anti-poverty, TICAS details the disconnect between higher education access and SNAP eligibility requirements and provides policy solutions to help improve pathways that lead to economic security.

Tennessee has long recognized the importance of early childhood care and education (ECCE) that children receive prior to school entry. Access to high-quality early teaching and learning contributes to the Tennessee Department of Education's (TDOE) goal that all children become successful readers by third grade, and moreover, better prepares children to thrive in kindergarten and into the future. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services explains that early childhood experiences, particularly the first five years of life, impact long-term social, cognitive, emotional, and physical development. In securing the Federal Preschool Development Birth through 5 Grant (PDG B-5), TDOE aims to gain a holistic understanding of the system of ECCE in Tennessee today. This Landscape Analysis is a systematic and comprehensive examination of the current state of ECCE and is a foundational input into the state's ECCE Needs & Opportunities Assessment. The goal of this work is to provide insights on ECCE supply and demand within Tennessee that will inform the development of a strategic plan aimed at supporting policymakers, programs, and other stakeholders to build a more effective and equitable ECCE system that meets the needs of children and families across the state. This Landscape Analysis provides a detailed assessment of the system of ECCE in Tennessee across five key areas: Governance, Demographics & Scale, ECCE Workforce, Accessibility & Capacity, and Quality.

Advocates for Children of New Jersey (ACNJ) is proud to be publishing the third Trenton Kids Count Data Book in over 20 years, a one-stop source for child well-being data on the state's capital city. Trenton Kids Count includes the latest statistics, along with data trends, in the following areas: demographics, family economic security, child health, child protection, child care, education, and teens. "Trenton Kids Count 2023" looks a bit different compared to previous data books. In particular, due to data quality concerns, the U.S. Census Bureau did not release American Community Survey (ACS) 2020 one-year estimates. For this reason, tables using ACS one-year estimates do jump from 2019 to 2021. [Funding for this report was provided by The Burke Foundation, the Princeton Area Community Foundation, and the Smith Family Foundation. For "Newark Kids Count 2022: A City Profile of Child Well-Being," see ED621268.]

Many welfare programs give greater benefits to unmarried individuals than to a married couple of otherwise identical income. The resulting marriage penalty discourages marriage and rewards single parenthood. Combined marriage penalties across federal and state welfare programs can reach tens of thousands of dollars per year for a given family. One component of the marriage penalties comes from state-level free or subsidized preschool programs. In addition to a failed track record in providing high-quality preschool education, the majority of government-funded preschool programs also have severe marriage penalties. Marriage is highly beneficial to adults, children, and society as a whole. Policymakers should consider the implications of their programs on marriage and design policies that do not discourage marriage, and, in fact, actively promote marriage and support married couples with children. [This report was produced by Heritage Foundation, Center for Health and Welfare Policy.]

Since 1997, Advocates for Children of New Jersey (ACNJ) has published the Newark Kids Count Data Book, a one-stop source for child well-being data on the state's largest city. Newark Kids Count includes the latest statistics, along with five-year trend data, in the following areas: demographics, family economic security, child health, child protection, child care, education, and teens.

Living in poverty worsens every type of life outcome for children, from physical and mental health to earnings, educational attainment, child welfare involvement, and risky behavior--and the longer children live in poverty, the worse their outcomes are as adults. Guaranteed Income (GI) is a policy that seeks to redress such inequities by providing recurring, unconditional cash to eligible participants. Substantial prior research has shown that increasing a household's income improves children's outcomes--and that a key path by which that happens is by improving the mother's mental health. This brief is woven from the stories shared by 67 parents and guardians participating in city-led 12-month guaranteed income (GI) pilot programs in the Southeast (USA)--in Atlanta, GA, Birmingham, AL, Louisville, KY, and Shreveport, LA. This brief shows how that process unfolds through parents' own stories of how GI pilots affected their and their children's lives. [Abt Associates acknowledge support and coordination from: Mayors for a Guaranteed Income, IMPACT (Atlanta, GA), Embrace Mothers (Birmingham, AL), YaLIFT! (Louisville, KY), and Shreveport Guaranteed Income Pilot (Shreveport, LA).

Youth formerly in foster care (YFFC) are more likely to report facing financial struggles while in college and may lack resources, marketable skills, and have limited networks/ support to rely on. These students may not have access to the same kind of family support as their peers. To address these challenges, this population relies more heavily on their institutions and government assistance. Additionally, while federal, state and institutional programs exist to provide aid to these students, many respondents in this sample were unaware of these supports. As a result, institutions must find ways to connect these students to the resources needed to ensure postsecondary success.

The Student Financial Wellness Survey (SFWS) provides a snapshot of student financial wellbeing during the fall of 2021. Over 700,000 students were surveyed from 104 schools in 25 states and 63,751 students responded. During this period Federal stimulus funding helped stabilize finances for many students, but many still struggled to make ends meet. This report is meant to amplify the lived experience of these students. Understanding these experiences will allow college administrators and policymakers to better serve students, enabling them to reach their academic potential. The Fall 2021 SFWS questionnaire went through a thorough reassessment. To reduce survey burden, many questions were removed and others rewritten based on feedback from students, school administrators, and various experts in collegiate finances. This resulted in an instrument that was easier for students to understand and quicker to complete. The report is divided into the following sections: (1) Paying for College; (2) Student Credit Card Use and Risky Borrowing; (3) Financial Decision-Making Factors and Financial Behaviors; (4) Student Financial Security; (5) Basic Needs Security; (6) Students Who Are Parents; and (7) Mental Health Challenges.

Considerable research has examined the personal factors and practices associated with transition-age youth with disabilities achieving higher employment rates and greater self-sufficiency as adults, but there is limited evidence on the longer-term effectiveness of these practices and services. This study examines the role of youth's use of transition services and work experiences in the pathways that youth with disabilities followed to longer-term employment and education outcomes drawing on data from a federal initiative known as Promoting Readiness of Minors in Supplemental Security Income (PROMISE). PROMISE aimed to improve the long-term self-sufficiency of youth receiving Supplemental Security Income by funding six programs to provide educational, vocational, and other services to youth and their families as well as improve service coordination between state and local agencies.

Many college students struggle to make ends meet while enrolled and sometimes must turn to a wide variety of safety net resources, including official government programs, borrowing from family, and selling belongings. This brief examines data from 63,751 undergraduate students who responded to Trellis' Fall 2021 Student Financial Wellness Survey (SFWS), analyzing the use of various safety net resources.

CalFresh benefits can help college students make ends meet while attending college, but not all eligible students apply. One contributing factor may be that students are not aware they are eligible. Therefore, outreach efforts informing them of their eligibility could help increase take-up rates. To test this, we designed and conducted two experiments that leveraged an expansion in CalFresh eligibility for students that went into effect in early 2021. In response to the pandemic, Congress permitted a temporary expansion to college student eligibility for SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program), or CalFresh as it is known in California. The expansion went into effect in January 2021 and will last through the end of the federal public health emergency. The California Department of Social Services (CDSS) and the California Student Aid Commission (CSAC) partnered with The People Lab (TPL) and the California Policy Lab (CPL) on two randomized experiments to evaluate whether outreach about this policy change could increase the number of students who applied for and eventually enrolled in CalFresh. One experiment, conducted in February and March 2021, tested the impact of email outreach. The second, conducted in June 2021, tested the relative effectiveness of different messages and modes of communication on the same group of students who were newly eligible. This brief reports the results of the second experiment. In a randomized experiment with 285,325 Californian college students, we found that the method of communication had a large impact on application rates: 2.9% of students who were only sent an email submitted an application for CalFresh compared to 4.9% of students who were sent an email and a postcard -- a 69% increase. Simplifying the content of the communication also yielded a small increase in application rates, but other variations in message content had no meaningful effect. During the six weeks following outreach, 10,000 contacted students applied for CalFresh. [The policy brief is produced by the California Policy Lab (CPL) and The People Lab (TPL).]

CalFresh benefits can help college students make ends meet while attending college, but not all eligible students apply. One contributing factor may be that students are not aware they are eligible. Therefore, outreach efforts informing them of their eligibility could help increase take-up rates. To test this, we designed and conducted two experiments that leveraged an expansion in CalFresh eligibility for students that went into effect in early 2021. In response to the pandemic, Congress permitted a temporary expansion to college student eligibility for SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program), or CalFresh as it is known in California. The expansion went into effect in January 2021 and will last through the end of the federal public health emergency. The California Department of Social Services (CDSS) and the California Student Aid Commission (CSAC) partnered with The People Lab (TPL) and the California Policy Lab (CPL) on two randomized experiments to evaluate whether outreach about this policy change could increase the number of students who applied for and eventually enrolled in CalFresh. One experiment, conducted in February and March 2021, tested the impact of email outreach. The second, conducted in June 2021, tested the relative effectiveness of different messages and modes of communication on the same group of students who were newly eligible. This brief reports the results of the first experiment.1 In a randomized experiment with 285,731 California college students who were eligible under the temporary expansion and were not already receiving CalFresh in January 2021, we found that an email from CSAC led roughly 2-3% of recipients to apply for benefits through GetCalFresh.org within a week of receiving the email. The increase in applications translated into an increase in CalFresh enrollment of 1.5 to 2.5 percentage points. Effects were even larger for students who received a second follow-up email. [The report was published by the California Policy Lab (CPL).]

The Newark Opportunity Youth Network (NOYN) contracted with the John J. Heldrich Center for Workforce Development at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey to conduct a comprehensive analysis of the youth workforce development system within the state. The study documents how the youth workforce system developed in New Jersey since the federal Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) took effect, how it currently functions, and the financial and systemic realities that historically have been an impediment to a more collaborative approach. An unfortunate truth is that sometimes state legislatures design policies that, perhaps unintentionally, inhibit a community's ability to achieve collective impact through leveraging multiple resources. Compliance-driven funding models that limit a program's ability to connect with other programs to expand the impact, or disconnected public agencies that allocate funds and operate programs, to name a few, create obstacles to achieving collective impact. This research aims to provide stakeholders, including direct service providers and policymakers, with the tools to navigate these obstacles to better serve young people in New Jersey. The literature available around youth workforce development specifically in New Jersey is sparse, so to complement the literature review, researchers conducted in-depth interviews with local and national experts in youth workforce development. For those who advocate on behalf of the population of opportunity or alternative youth, the question demanding an answer is what can and should be done to improve the system of youth workforce development to better serve disconnected youth? This study begins to respond to that question. [This report was produced with the Newark Opportunity Youth Network (NOYN), with funding from the Aspen Institute Forum for Community Solutions.]

When students are food insecure, they often encounter adverse health, social, and academic outcomes, including harm to cognitive functions, mental health, and academic performance. Additionally, compared to food secure peers, students struggling with food insecurity are 43 percent less likely to graduate from college with a two- or four-year degree. With recent estimates of food insecurity among postsecondary students as high as 45 percent, many colleges and universities have responded by implementing on-campus food distribution centers (i.e., food pantries or closets) to better assist students struggling to meet their basic needs. These pantries often provide more than food to students, including personal hygiene products, toiletries, diapers, personnel trained to assist applicants with applying to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and other benefit programs, and more. Ninety-one of the 104 colleges and universities who participated in Trellis' Fall 2021 Student Financial Wellness Survey (SFWS) had at least one food pantry available to students. To better understand student awareness and utilization of this resource, this brief examines data from 49,946 students attending a school with one or more food pantries (as of November 1, 2021) and who responded to the corresponding question: "Does your school have a food pantry or food closet on campus?"

The Health Profession Opportunity Grants (HPOG) Program provided education and occupational training to Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) recipients and other adults with low incomes. HPOG training is for healthcare occupations that pay well and may experience labor shortages or be in high demand. This report details common themes from interviews with working students of 14 HPOG 2.0 programs. It highlights common experiences and challenges they faced pursuing and completing their training, which include the competing demands of working to pay for household expenses and caring for family members. Key findings suggest additional logistical and financial support might increase program completion rates; students' willingness to enroll in subsequent, higher-level training; and ultimately earnings. Recommendations for further support include: (1) Additional financial assistance--such as stipends to cover costs of maintaining a household/caring for family members or with emergency costs; (2) Financial and logistical support for caretaking responsibilities--to better meet participants' needs and reduce their stress levels throughout training; (3) Greater program flexibility--to make up classes missed while responding to emergency situations and schedule conflicts, for example; and (4) Motivational messaging--promoting the well-being of participants' children as a major incentive to complete training. Frequent reminders that connect to participants' motivations could increase program completion. This is part of a series of briefs describing lessons from HPOG 2.0 participants. The series aims to provide a comprehensive understanding of motivations for enrolling in a career pathways program; managing work, training, and life balance; and services that facilitate their success. [For Brief 2, see ED621586.]