Findings from a Study of California Community College Students Experiences Navigating Basic Need Support Programs

Background: California Community College (CCC) students experience high rates of basic need insecurity. A 2023 CCC basic needs study showed that 47% of students experienced food security and 10% of students experienced homelessness. Many CCCs have built robust student basic needs programs; however, development of these programs are infrequently grounded in research, introducing the risk of campuses implementing approaches that may or may not be effective. This study fills a gap by exploring the experiences of students at two CCCs over the course of a year, how participants accessed basic needs supports, and how emerging on- and off-campus services responded to these needs. Findings provide insight on the experiences of students as they accessed or chose not to access available services, revealing facilitators, barriers, and gaps in existing programmatic responses in higher education ecosystems.

Methods: Study participants who had previously accessed basic need or equity-based programs, were recruited from an urban southern California campus (n=28), and rural northern California campus (n=20). Students participated in three qualitative interviews and two focus groups from spring 2022 to summer 2023. Quantitative data were collected through a screener survey, and five electronic surveys. Survey questions explored indicators of food and housing security, program access, enrollment, employment, and health and well-being. Additionally, ecological momentary assessment was used to allow for repeated real-time and retrospective assessments of participants’ behavior and experience. Inductive approaches were used to analyze qualitative data to identify codes, themes, and patterns. Quantitatively, mean, standard deviation, frequencies, and percentages described characteristics of the study sample. Correlation analysis was done to support understanding of the relationships between variables included in the analysis and possible trends across time points.

Results: Three major findings include: 1) at the societal level, direct support to students via financial aid appeared to be an efficient conduit to provide support to students; 2) at the institutional level, students reported barriers and facilitators when accessing on-campus basic needs programs and found these resources extremely helpful to their economic, physical and academic well-being; 3) At the interpersonal level, personal and campus relationships deeply impacted students’ academic journey. These social connections often acted as surrogates of support, contributing to their personal and academic growth.

Conclusion and Implications: Findings show that community college campus basic need programs play a vital role in student success. Basic needs services are most effective when they center the lived experience of students and recognize the full complexity of their lives and identities. Leaders must ensure that all new basic needs programs include a focus on equity for students who are most overlooked and marginalized. Criteria for program support should include focused outreach, hiring racially/culturally/lived experience relevant staff, and programming demonstrative effectiveness at addressing strengths and barriers faced by students who are most vulnerable to basic needs insecurity. Advocacy is needed for improvements in CalFresh (SNAP), CalWORKs, and other county, state, and federal policies and processes to ensure students are able to easily participate and receive benefits.