Now in its fifth year, the #RealCollege survey is the nation’s largest, the longest-running annual assessment of basic needs security among college students. In the absence of any federal data on the subject, the Hope Center for College, Community, and Justice created the survey to evaluate access to affordable food and housing among college students.
This report describes the results of the #RealCollege survey administered in the fall of 2019 at 33 of the 64 State University of New York (SUNY) colleges and universities, a subset of the 227
institutions surveyed across the United States.
In 2019, approximately 18,280 SUNY students from 18 two-year colleges and 15 four-year colleges and universities responded to the #RealCollege survey. The results indicate:
- 36% of respondents were food insecure in the prior 30 days
- 37% of respondents were housing insecure in the previous year
- 16% of respondents were homeless in the previous year