Maia Jackson had to prepare a research paper for her communication class. Instead, she found herself standing in line at a food pantry to secure groceries for her household during the nation’s longest government shutdown.
“I left with a shopping bag full of food,” said the 25-year-old college senior. “I could barely carry everything. I got cereal. I got frozen meat, hamburger buns. I got a bag of black beans and then a bag of rice.”
She nearly cried when she found the package of chicken strips, a meal she knew her picky 2-year-old daughter would definitely eat, Jackson said. She expects a mix of perishable, packaged and canned foods to last her a month. By then, she hopes her Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) payments, commonly known as food stamps, will resume.
November 1 SNAP benefits were suspended during the federal budget impasse that began a month earlier, and President Donald Trump’s administration has refused to fully fund those benefits. Even as the Senate reached a framework agreement that moves lawmakers and the White House a step closer to ending the shutdown, the disruption in benefits has exposed how fragile the social safety net for vulnerable Americans is. This includes single parents and young adults experiencing food insecurity, a problem that occurs when people do not have consistent access to the food they need to maintain their health.
An estimated 1.1 million college students rely on SNAP, including parents like Jackson, who attends North Dakota State University (NDSU) in Fargo. For such students, delayed SNAP payments are not just a hindrance, experts say, but a serious setback that can harm their education, health and children’s stability.
“As a single mom at school, it’s very distracting for me,” Jackson said. “I don’t have any bandwidth to search pantries for food.
She tried to minimize the time she spent at the food pantry last week by making an appointment first, but she was still one of a couple dozen people in line. The visit prevented her from completing her research paper by the due date, so her grade will likely be closed. Jackson, who has maintained a 4.0 grade point average thus far, isn’t happy with that prospect, but since her family members are an hour away and the child’s father is mostly out of sight, she has had to prioritize food over education.
No college student should have to choose between a basic need and school, said Deborah Martin, senior policy scientist at the Institute for College Access and Success, a nonprofit that advocates for college access and affordability.
“A lot of students have to make these tough decisions every day where they’re like, ‘Where am I going to get my next meal?’ instead of focusing on homework, on classwork,” Martin said. “We know that when students have unmet basic needs like food insecurity, they are more likely to struggle academically, are less likely to persist from semester to semester, and in some cases may even drop out of college altogether.”
About 60 percent of college students are women. For the most marginalized students, the risk of dropping out of school due to lack of food can be even greater. The Government Accountability Office (GAO), a nonpartisan federal agency that provides fact-based information to Congress, reported last year that about 80 percent of food insecure students are non-traditional, meaning they don’t have parents who support them financially, didn’t start school right out of high school or care for dependents. In addition, in 2023-2024 A Student Basic Needs Survey report from the Hope Center, a Temple University research center focused on food, housing, and health among college students, found that about three-quarters of parentage, Black, and Native American students experience insecurity related to basic needs.
Most of these students, the GAO found, don’t sign up for services like SNAP, and those who do feel free to discuss their food insecurity. As a mother and a slightly older student with a part-time job, Jackson felt alone on campus because SNAP benefits were suspended. Her classmates don’t seem to share her anxiety about the closure, if at all.
in 2025 A woman shops at the Feeding South Florida food pantry in Pembroke Park, Florida on October 27. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
“A lot of the kids I’m in the classroom with aren’t in the same situation,” Jackson said. “It’s strange to see a lot of people acting as normal.
Since most of her classmates—a roughly equal percentage of NDSU students are female and male—are childless and on the school’s meal plan, she doesn’t want to be “difficult” in bringing up her struggles. For the same reason, she did not explain to her professor why her work was late. “I didn’t want to tell him, ‘Oh, I couldn’t write that because I was in the food pantry line,’ because that just sounds so sad,” she said. “What’s he supposed to say? I don’t want him to feel bad for me. I don’t want to be pitied.”
But pretending to be normal can be costly for college students who don’t seek help. Martin fears that these young adults will use high-interest payment plans or acquire credit card debt to buy groceries.
“The longer students and other SNAP participants are without funds, the more days students will have to make these tough decisions,” she said.
Some college administrators are taking action. As the shutdown began, Compton College President and CEO Keith Curry reached out to Everytable, a food company that offers affordable, made-from-scratch meals in stores and a delivery service. The college, located about 18 miles southeast of downtown Los Angeles, has partnered with Everytable for seven years to provide one nutritious free weekday meal to all students (about 6,000 full-time students).
The federal government’s crisis prompted Curry and Everytable CEO Sam Polk to expand the program so SNAP recipients and economically disadvantaged students wouldn’t be hurt by the shutdown.
“We have to do something. Can we split the cost?” Curry recalled asking Polk. “I think if we double the number of meals, they will at least get another meal of the day.”
November 5 the most disadvantaged students at Compton College began receiving free meals twice a day or 10 times a week. The need for such an intervention is great: in 2025 A survey of students’ basic needs showed that 81 percent of them experience at least one form of insecurity related to basic needs. These include signs of food deprivation, such as skipping meals, cutting back on meal sizes, or fearing they will run out of food. A majority of Compton College students are moderately food insecure, a survey found, indicating ongoing hardship. Women make up 61 percent of students.
“Students are under a different kind of stress right now, and what we’re doing to them is putting even more stress on them,” Curry said of the closure. “They still want to study well, but now they don’t have food.
Together, Compton College and Evertable have the resources to feed students 10 weeks a month, Curry said. Students are very grateful for the extra provisions, according to Dee Garrett, who oversees Everytable at the college.
“What better way to start college than with a full stomach?” Garrett asked. “You don’t have to think, ‘Oh my God, my stomach. I can’t focus or concentrate.’
Asked what impact he hopes the expanded program will have, Curry said he’s more concerned with letting students know they’re not alone.
“It’s not about the impact, it’s about our students knowing we were there for them during that time,” he said. “In our community, when students need us the most, we need to step up and be there for them, and they will never forget that.”
Martin applauds the efforts of colleges and K-12 schools that have connected students and their families with food banks to curb food insecurity during the shutdown. But she also advocates a long-term policy to ensure students have enough food. This includes the Improving Access to SNAP Act, proposed legislation designed to remove barriers that prevent economically disadvantaged college students from accessing benefits in general — not just during the current crisis.
But Martin continued, “The most important thing we can do right now is to get these SNAP benefits fully funded and to students as quickly as possible.”
Back in Fargo, Jackson has refocused on her coursework now that she has a month’s worth of food. Still, she worries about people who couldn’t get to the pantry, or that the government will cut back on other social services she needs. She currently earns $400 a month working part-time as an editor for an academic journal. The job she does remotely allows her to attend school and be the primary caregiver for her daughter when the toddler is not in daycare.
“If they’re going to cut child care, if they’re going to cut these programs that I rely on, I’m going to have to drop out of school,” Jackson said. “But I’m trying to give my daughter a better life.”
Jackson is taking a college course with an emphasis on pre-law, a dramatic shift from her life before motherhood, when she dropped out of school and struggled with addiction. The pregnancy led her to undergo a transformation, which she largely attributes to Jeremiah’s program. The national nonprofit provides college, childcare and housing assistance to single mothers, and recently launched a campaign to raise $190,000 for essential needs for families who lost SNAP and other benefits due to the shutdown. The organization estimates that single-parent families make up nearly a third of families in the United States, and 80 percent of families are headed by mothers.
Jackson was deeply disturbed to see the misconceptions about mothers like herself. She faced Internet commenters who described SNAP recipients as “welfare queens.”
If she was able to meet such individuals in person, Jackson would highlight the value that mothers add to society. “And besides… we all go to school and work,” she said. “The premise is that we’re just scammers, freeloaders, and in fact I work very hard every day so that hopefully I don’t need this support.”
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