Work part-time, don’t but earn too much. Enroll in college at least part-time, but be ready to miss class or work for an interview. Wait hours on the phone for your interview, then months for your paperwork to be processed. These are just some of the hoops college students have to go through to receive CalFresh, the federally funded food benefit program also known as SNAP.
Across California, between 400,000 and 750,000 college students meet SNAP eligibility but only about one-fifth receive federal food assistance, leaving around $140 million untapped, according to the California Policy Lab. While several campuses offer food pantries, meal donation programs and staff dedicated to helping students apply for CalFresh, many students still struggle to meet their nutritional needs.
In California in 2023, 66% of students reported food insecurity, meaning they lacked reliable access to healthy and nutritious food, according to the California Student Aid Commission.
Students who don’t have enough food experience problems with mental and physical health, earn lower grades and graduate at lower rates, research finds. They are more likely to miss or drop classes and may not have the money to buy course materials. Meanwhile, students who do receive SNAP perform better academically, researchers have found.
So why aren’t students enrolling in CalFresh? Two big obstacles trip them up: the application process and eligibility requirements.
Applying for CalFresh is a lengthy process
To apply for CalFresh, college students must first find out if they are eligible, then fill out the online application. If they have questions, they can seek out CalFresh staff at their campus or contact a county CalFresh office. Next, students set up a phone appointment with the county and submit the required documents, such as proof of enrollment, pay stubs and rental agreements. While the GetCalFresh website suggests which documents are “usually required,” students report inconsistencies in what agents ask them to submit.
When Kelly Zamudio transferred to UC Davis in fall 2024, she knew money would be tight. She had used her savings to move into campus housing. “Over the summer, I became really scared,” she said. She immediately applied for CalFresh and got a part-time job. When she received conflicting messages about which housing documents were required for her application, she had to seek clarification from a CalFresh representative. That person also told Zamudio that processing her paperwork would take 10 days. Four months after submitting her application, she finally received her EBT card at the beginning of 2025.
If students do get CalFresh, they must apply for recertification — first after six months and then annually, or sooner if their job changes. Recertification requires another application and interview. Researchers at the California Policy Lab found that students are six times more likely to drop CalFresh in the month when their recertification is due.
Between 2022 and 2023, Chico State researchers surveyed 1,340 public college students throughout California who qualify for CalFresh and found 62% of them don’t enroll, according to Stephanie Bianco, director of the Center for Healthy Communities at Chico State, which contracts with the state to run over 30 health and wellness programs across California and conducts health research. In their survey responses, students said they didn’t think they were eligible, didn’t have time to apply, or felt others needed aid more than they did.
The phone interview causes the most problems. Zamudio missed her first phone appointment because of work. The soonest appointment she could get was a month later. Another UC Davis student, Alonso Rodríguez Villalobos, had to wait on the phone for three hours past his appointment time.
Recent data show that more than a quarter of college applicants were denied benefits because they missed their interview. Some campus CalFresh coordinators advise students to call in as soon as possible on the day of their appointment.
“We tell them … ‘Call immediately, stay on the wait line, and know that it could take up to three hours,’” said Nadia Hernandez Arteaga, a graduate student and part-time CalFresh coordinator at Sonoma State University.
Sonoma State is one of about 50 campuses with CalFresh outreach programs that support students from pre-screening through recertification. The outreach program is funded primarily by student fees along with an annual $18,000 grant from the Chico State Center for Healthy Communities, according to Sonoma State spokesperson Jeff Keating.
County CalFresh staffing levels vary, which affects how long the application process takes. And, while California law requires a county-campus liaison for CalFresh for every campus, the Legislature does not provide funding for the positions, according to Amy Gonzales, director of CalFresh programs for Chico State. So county staff overseeing student applications often also handle county resident applications and other responsibilities, she said.
Suzanna Martinez, a UC San Francisco researcher, interviewed county agency workers who process student CalFresh applications in 10 California counties. The employees said the requirements are confusing, the application process is intimidating, and students have trouble providing documents.
“Several staff members voiced that they did not feel that the student rules were equitable, noting the extra ‘hoops’ students had to overcome to be eligible,” according to the report. Slightly more than half suggested getting rid of the federally mandated rules for students altogether. During the COVID pandemic when eligibility requirements were loosened nationwide, student enrollment rose from 127,000 in 2019 to nearly 163,000 in May 2023.
Ian Kaled Rodriguez, a fourth-year computer science student at Chico State, applied to CalFresh in January 2022 after his first semester. His campus housing required a meal plan, but the cafeteria was too far to get to between classes. He got a job and saved money by buying ramen, 10 for $5. “Just, like, breakfast, dinner, lunch, ramen. Just keep eating ramen,” he said.
“I was just, like, starving,” Rodriguez said. So he submitted a CalFresh application. But when the county called him for an interview, he was surprised. He’d never received an appointment time. He was even more surprised, he said, when the case worker told him he’d need to submit documents. He had nothing prepared.
Rodriguez was ultimately approved for CalFresh. But his card was denied the first time he tried to buy groceries. His caseworker said he should have received a code as well. A week later, he received the code in the mail.
Today, Rodriguez explains the whole process to Chico State students applying for CalFresh. He works part time for the Center for Healthy Communities, a job he likens to being the “middleman.”
However, even his job doesn’t protect him from snafus. Last month, Rodriguez lost his benefits even though he’d submitted his recertification on time. When he tried to use his card, there were no funds. That day, he spent an hour and a half on hold with the county before giving up. He called early the next day and waited 40 minutes before an agent responded, only to tell him that “his file had just been sitting there,” he said. The agent’s supervisor was able to reload his card by that afternoon.
Strict requirements hamper eligibility
Federal researchers confirm that a confusing tangle of requirements blocks students from getting SNAP throughout the country.
In addition to making less than $2,510 per month, students must be enrolled in school at least half-time, be between 18 and 49 years old, and be a citizen of the U.S. Students also must meet one of many federal criteria, such as working at least 20 hours a week, participating in a federal or state work-study program, having a child, receiving CalWorks or a federally funded Cal Grant for low-income students, or being enrolled in an educational or training program approved by the state.
Many students who experience food insecurity don’t qualify for any of the CalFresh requirements.
“Some of them don't have Cal Grant A or B, they didn't qualify for work study ... and they're working 15 hours a week, so they don't quite hit that mark of 20 hours to qualify. So it's hard because the students are [still] in this place of need,” said Micheala Bietz, community service and basic needs coordinator at Sonoma State.
Eligibility rules exclude certain populations, such as part-time students or those without permanent legal status, even if they meet the income criteria.
Researchers say improved and mandated data-sharing will make it easier for campuses to identify eligible students and help them apply for CalFresh.
The California State University’s director of basic needs, Carolyn O’Keefe, said in the past two years California’s higher education systems have been working to improve data sharing and streamline the application process. “We've done a pretty good job at ensuring that the students that are eligible know that they're eligible,” she said.
But data collection is uneven. Not all campuses track student eligibility and CalFresh enrollment rates and data collection and sharing varies from county to county. Butte County, where need is high and resources low, does not have the staff or financial resources to track student enrollment in CalFresh, said Gonzales at Chico State.
Chico State’s Basic Needs Center, which houses the campus food pantry and gives emergency housing vouchers and cash grants to students, tracks how many students apply for CalFresh each semester. But the center doesn't know how many of those applications get approved. “I would love to have data on that,” Gonzales said.
Lawmakers try to increase CalFresh recipients
California legislators have made some efforts to expand student CalFresh enrollment. In 2021, they passed laws requiring county liaisons to work with colleges on increasing student participation and requiring public colleges to give students information about CalFresh during orientation. They also funded basic need centers at California public colleges, with $15 million for the California State University system and $30 million for community colleges each year. In 2019 the University of California system began receiving $15 million annually for students’ basic needs; that amount increased by $800,000 in 2023.
In 2022, colleges had to start notifying students in writing of their CalFresh eligibility. In September 2024 Gov. Gavin Newsom approved two bills to further expand the reach of CalFresh. One requires the California Department of Social Services to start tracking data by July 1, 2025 on eligible students who don’t participate in CalFresh.
The other law, Assembly Bill 2033, stipulates that at least one market must accept CalFresh on each public college and university campus. However, a report released by UCLA in January quoted a respondent, who said, “We surveyed a lot of campuses, and I think only about 12% to 15% of all schools accept EBT somewhere on their campus. And that's pretty bad, considering that they all can.”
While SNAP is a federally funded program, states can refine policies and eligibility requirements. In California, legislative efforts have focused on the work requirement. In 2014, the state passed a bill to clarify that certain training programs, such as the Educational Opportunity Program, qualify as work. More recently, Assembly Bill 396 in 2021 allows public higher education institutions to apply for state certification for more training programs to qualify as work, from research assistantships to entire degree programs.
At UC Davis, Rodríguez Villalobos was denied CalFresh in the fall of 2024 because he didn’t meet the work requirement. The psychology major needed a mentor to approve his research project, which would have qualified as one of the state-approved training programs that replaces the work requirement. Finally, earlier this month, Rodríguez Villalobos found a research mentor and started working with him; he will now reapply for CalFresh.
“AB 396, has been a total game changer,” said Aydin Nazmi, an epidemiologist and public health specialist at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo.
Under that law thousands of programs, referred to as “Local Programs that Increase Employability,” at all public universities and colleges now give CalFresh eligibility to participating full-time college students.
“It's pretty safe to say California is the national leader in college student basic needs initiatives and movements and advocacy,” Nazmi said.
Nazmi has tracked student participation in CalFresh on his campus since 2010, when fewer than 100 students received the benefits. After the bill passed in 2021, CalFresh enrollment more than doubled. Today, more than 4,400 Cal Poly students use CalFresh.
Nazmi says that CalFresh meets students' food needs better than campus-run services like food pantries and donating meal swipes. Research shows the best intervention is “money in your pocket,” he said, adding “the good thing about CalFresh is that it is money in your pocket earmarked for food, for groceries only.”
Lizzy Rager contributed to this story. Moore and Rager are contributors with the College Journalism Network, a collaboration between CalMatters and student journalists from across California. CalMatters higher education coverage is supported by a grant from the College Futures Foundation.
This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.
