One in Four U.S. Undergrads Experience Food Insecurity, Study Finds
Posted by Spotlight on Poverty and Opportunity on January 27, 2026
Food insecurity is a pressing issues across all demographic groups but college students are often overlooked when it comes to the impact of hunger and lack of proper nutrition. A new national study from Katharine Broton, Associate Professor of Higher Education and Student Affairs at the University of Iowa, offers a rare national snapshot of the depth of the problem.
In our latest exclusive, Spotlight spoke with Broton. “We have new, nationally representative data that was collected in 2020, and this is really exciting because we’ve been kind of having these small samples for years,” Broton said. “This is the first time we have nationally represented data that is representative of the experiences of undergraduates and graduate students across the U.S. and in Puerto Rico and D.C. And we’re finding that roughly about one in four undergraduates and one in eight graduate students experienced food insecurity in the past month.”
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