As 2 in 5 college students experience food insecurity, more of them rely on food pantries

Morgan Styke, 24, and a senior at Minnesota State University, Mankato is looking through boxes of apples, cantaloupes, carrots and potatoes and loading up her shopping cart with the fresh produce at the free farmers market held on campus.

As a full-time student with a seven year old son at home, and with grocery prices continuing to rise, Styke said she must increasingly rely on the university-run campus food pantry and this free farmers market to help stock up her fridge and put food on her table.

“I like to take a bunch of vegetables and prepare them, freeze them, so that way I can have stuff in the future and use them a lot,” Styke said. “Fresh vegetables are hard to come by, so I’m pretty happy about that.”

“I don't have a big budget for my groceries, and I have my son, so I think that it's good for him to eat a bunch of healthy stuff, and it's hard on a tight budget, you know,” the soon-to-be graduating senior added.

The boxes of sweet potatoes, potatoes, cabbages, and other produce were stacked on long tables for students and university staff to take home in tote bags. The food is supplied through the MSU, Mankato’s Maverick Food Pantry in partnership with Second Harvest Heartland.

For two decades now, the student-run volunteer organization Mavs in Action has been hosting this free farmers’ market once per semester. Crystal Watts, assistant director of the University’s Community Engagement Office, said about 400 to 600 students take advantage of the farmers’ market each time its offered.

“Students are humans first. They’re adults, yes, but they’re also stepping into situations they’ve been in for the first time,” Watts said. “If your communities are starting to see an uptick in basic needs and access to [food], then it’s likely reflected on college campuses as well.”

While many students work part-time jobs while in school, they may have an unexpected medical bill, expensive car repairs or they may face rent increases that can create financial instability. Those stresses can lead them to cut back on nutritious foods and to skip meals altogether, and that can lead them to miss classes and affect their ability to study, hurting their grades, while causing mental health challenges. The combined stresses, with food insecurity at the center of them, can make it even more difficult for many students to finish their degrees.

Congress last year eliminated several work exemptions for certain groups of SNAP recipients and enacted stricter requirements for federal food aid eligibility, leading to a significant increase in the number of students on college campuses visiting food pantries—including at MSU Mankato.

“The increase in our weekly users was the highest it’s ever been,” said Megan Heutmaker, coordinator of the Maverick Food Pantry. “Grocery costs rising… everything’s really more expensive. If a student is out here on their own, having to pay for school and all of the expenses it costs to live is definitely one of those things where we want to be able to help and support them through the food pantry.”

Since opening its doors in December of 2020, the Maverick Food Pantry now helps up to 800 students per week, according to Heutmaker, and in those five-plus years, she said the cost of the food purchased by the pantry has soared 50 percent. The pantry relies on Second Harvest Heartland for food distribution in order to keep serving students.

“Hunger does affect everyone,” Heutmaker said. “How can we make sure that we’re here standing to continue that support as we move into the future?”

Food insecurity on the rise

Other college campuses across the state are also seeing similar trends. The continued rise in food prices and the challenges of inflation pushing up other costs has led to one in four students at the University of Minnesota’s Twin Cities campus experiencing food insecurity.

But, like MSU Mankato, the University of Minnesota is also seeking to broaden access to its Nutritious U Food Pantry with a new partnership with Second Harvest Heartland to help expand its food offerings and also streamline operations.

Similar partnerships are expected to launch between regional food shelves and the U of M’s Morris, Duluth, Crookston and Rochester campuses later this year.

Michelle Trumpy, senior director of public health at Boynton Health, said this past autumn, the number of visits students made to the school’s food pantry jumped up 62 percent from fall 2024, with most of those students making at least one or two return visits.

And while high numbers are concerning, Trumpy said the silver lining appears to be that there’s less of a stigma on campus about seeking this kind of help and support.

“So to us, that’s indicative of students really using this as an emergency resource, which I think is a positive thing overall,” Trumpy said. “Perhaps an unexpected car payment or a medical bill or a delayed paycheck or something like that where they needed a little bit of extra help to get through the month, and then the Nutritious U Food Pantry is there for them.”