By Dylan Borne
36% of students are food insecure, according to a national study published by the Wisconsin HOPE Lab in April of this year. Out of the 40,000 students surveyed at 66 schools, another 36% are housing insecure and a full 9% of university students and 12% of community college students are homeless.
This means tens of thousands of students nationally have to pick between food, a roof, and textbooks. In other words: either you get a meal now or a paycheck later.
On a historical level, what these numbers show is that greater numbers of working class people are attending college. Being a student isn’t just for the privileged anymore, and bosses are becoming more and more demanding for workers with degrees.
But while colleges might be opening their doors to low-income youth, they’re not lowering tuition for them. In fact, they’re taking advantage of working class students’ desperation. Tuition rates are skyrocketing and university administrators are raking in 6 figures or more. The UL system’s President makes $400,000, and at the highest end Tulane’s last president stepped down with an ending salary of $1.6 million.
Pretending they’ve found the end-all solution, some colleges, like Southeastern and LSU, have set up food pantries. But these are just breadcrumbs. LSU only lets students use their food pantry twice a week (when their president is bringing home a $600,000 salary!).
Even with food pantries, what will students do about housing? Healthcare? Crushing debt?
Pantries are surely helpful, but they’re clearly not enough– they don’t grasp the root of the problem.
When schools are run like businesses for administrators’ profit, working class students suffer. Colleges should be run to provide education before anything else, and students need real decision-making power to make sure that happens. A Students’ Assembly should have a say in whether or not a tuition hike or food limit gets passed. It’s impossible to get a real education while you can’t even meet your basic needs, and the school leadership’s greed shouldn’t be getting in the way.