We’re excited to announce that 15 colleges and universities are participating in Understanding Postsecondary Students’ Perspectives on Basic Needs Insecurity, a three-year research initiative led by Ithaka S+R with support from ECMC Foundation.

By centering students’ perspectives, this project helps institutions better understand how undergraduate students define and experience basic needs insecurity and how their experiences and perceptions influence help-seeking behavior. The project seeks to better equip colleges and universities to strengthen their communication and support strategies to meet students where they are.

The 15 participating institutions include:

  • Bunker Hill Community College
  • East Tennessee State University
  • McLennan Community College
  • Michigan State University
  • Montgomery County Community College
  • Morgan State University
  • Portland Community College
  • Renton Technical College
  • Rutgers University, Newark
  • SUNY Empire State University
  • University of California, Santa Cruz
  • University of North Carolina, Wilmington
  • University of South Carolina, Columbia
  • Western Nevada College

Together, the participating institutions include community colleges and four-year universities across a variety of geographic contexts serving different student populations. This presents an opportunity to learn how students experience and navigate support systems across different campus contexts and what those experiences can teach us about strengthening institutional communication and practice.

What’s next?

Over the next three years, participating institutions will work with Ithaka S+R towards three core goals:

  1. Develop a student-informed understanding of basic needs insecurity. How do undergraduate students themselves define and experience basic needs insecurity? What thresholds of insecurity prompt action?
  2. Examine how student perceptions shape help-seeking behavior. How do factors such as stigma, trust, perceived eligibility, and communication influence whether and how students seek support, including through campus-based resources and public benefits?
  3. Identify student-informed strategies for institutional outreach and support. How can institutions better align communication, services and benefits navigation with student experiences to improve awareness, reduce stigma, and increase access?

This fall, Ithaka S+R will conduct interviews and focus groups across participating institutions designed to understand how students talk about basic needs insecurity, what shapes their decisions to seek or not seek support, and how they prefer to learn about available resources. These student perspectives will shape the next phase of the project by informing the development of a student-informed survey that will examine these questions across a much larger group of undergraduate students.

Toward the end of the project, institutions will participate in communication strategy labs designed to translate what we learn into practical priorities for outreach and student support. Together, these institutions will explore the relationship between students’ own perceptions of basic needs insecurity and validated measures of food, housing, and other forms of insecurity, while also examining awareness of and engagement with campus and public support.

To supplement the perspectives of students gathered through the interviews, focus groups, and surveys, a group of student advisors from the participating institutions will contribute to the project throughout its research and engagement activities.

We are also working with five advisors whose expertise spans basic needs research, policy, institutional practice, and student support:

  • Rashida Crutchfield, Executive Director of the Center for Equitable Higher Education (CEHE), and Professor, School of Social Work, California State University Long Beach
  • Hope Dixon, Basic Needs Coordinator, Contra Costa College
  • April Lopez, Assistant Dean of Students, Basic Needs Care Manager, SUNY Oswego
  • Milad Mohebali, Assistant Professor, Department of Educational Administration, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
  • Paige Swanstein, Co-Founder and Executive Director of the Student Basic Needs Coalition (SBNC)

Centering student perspectives

Throughout the project, participating institutions will receive institution-level insights, cohort-wide benchmarking, practical tools, and ongoing support from the Ithaka S+R team. More broadly, we hope this work will contribute to a more student-centered understanding of basic needs insecurity and offer practical insights for improving outreach, reducing barriers to help-seeking, and strengthening how institutions communicate with students about available support.

We look forward to learning alongside participating institutions, advisors, and students, and to sharing what we learn with the broader field as the project continues.

If you’re interested in learning more about the Understanding Postsecondary Students’ Perspectives on Basic Needs Insecurity initiative, please reach out to Melissa Blankstein (melissa.blankstein@ithaka.org) and Elmira Jangjou (elmira.jangjou@ithaka.org).