UC Davis

In recent years, a breadth of policy research efforts have aimed to deromanticize the starving college student narrative, relaying housing and food challenges as symptomatic of greater systemic inequalities. California’s legislators and college administrators have subsequently attempted to mitigate students’ basic needs challenges, with accelerated efforts through the COVID-19 pandemic. However, little qualitative research has been conducted to investigate the implementation of basic needs supports, garner housing insecure students’ perceptions of needed resources, or understand how students’ housing challenges are connected to their local contexts. Further, research efforts and responsive resources have disproportionately advantaged four-year colleges, which serve a larger share of non-local and financially sufficient students.Given that: 1) racial disparities exist in students’ ability to meet their basic needs, and 2) basic needs resources are often tied to community colleges’ equity funding, the first paper employs staff interviews and critical discourse analysis to explore the California Community Colleges system’s inclination to equitably distribute housing resources pre-pandemic. In a narrower case study approach, the second paper’s interviews and focus groups shed light on how select Black community college students have balanced coursework with housing challenges, as well as their perceptions of available basic needs resources. An ecological approach enables this dissertation to provide a humanizing understanding of students experiencing basic needs insecurity, inform student services, and contribute context-driven inquiry to postsecondary research.