When Sairam Bokka was a graduate student at the University of Maryland Baltimore County, worries about where his next meal would come from sometimes got in the way of his assignments.

Bokka, who came to UMBC from India to study cybersecurity, couldn’t work in the U.S., so money was tight. Then he discovered Retriever Essentials, a free on-campus pantry that gives out food and living essentials to students. That was a game changer, he said.

“It really gave me peace of mind,” he said.

Bokka is one of the thousands of Maryland college students who use food pantries on their campuses as hunger rises nationwide. The state’s public universities are accepting a rising number of students with Pell Grants, a federal financial aid award for low-income students, many of whom can’t afford expensive campus dining plans.

“Most people I talk to are very surprised to hear that food pantries exist on college campuses, and have the assumption that if you can afford to go to college then you can afford everything else,” said Michael Berardi, UMBC’s assistant director for Retriever Essentials.

The issue of food insecurity on college campuses has become so prevalent that in 2023, for the first time in its history, the National Postsecondary Student Aid Study included data on students without frequent and secure access to food.

The first round of data showed that 23% of undergraduates and 12% of graduate students are experiencing food insecurity. That’s more than 4 million students.

“As the cost of college and university attendance increases, a lot of students are having to choose between a meal plan and paying their tuition and housing,” said LaMonika Jones, director of Maryland Hunger Solutions.

Maryland Hunger Solutions supports the Hunger-Free Campus Grant program, which provides funding to public colleges to address food insecurity.

UMBC secured $11,000 for its pantry through that initiative.

The majority of the food in its pantry, which launched 10 years ago, is from the Maryland Food Bank. When needed, Berardi and his team will purchase food from grocery stores, and they also have a partnership with Patel Brothers, a South Asian food store. UMBC has a large number of Indian graduate students.

Volunteers also go to the dining hall and take leftovers that would be thrown away for the pantry. Students are able to donate their extra “swipes,” or dining hall entries, to the pantry as well.

Students at UMBC are allowed to visit the facility, which is open four days a week, once per day. There isn’t a screening process because Berardi wants to make the pantry as inclusive and stigma-free as possible, he said.

“We estimate that roughly 30% of our population has experienced some level of food insecurity,” Berardi said. “I talk to students on a daily basis who don’t know where their next meal is going to come from.”

Students of color are even more likely to go hungry. Nearly 2 in 5 undergraduate students at historically Black colleges report food insecurity.

Coppin State University, an HBCU in Baltimore where the majority of students receive Pell Grants, created a free grocery store for students in 2022.

Called Coppin Corner, the campus pantry has shelves filled with canned food, cereal and noodles. There are also freezers with meat and other refrigerated items.

Every two weeks, students at Coppin State can take out 14 items from the pantry. The center sees about 200 visits a week, said Julie Brooks, the basic needs coordinator at the university.

“Our utilization has increased because students are becoming more aware,” she said.

Coppin Corner gets funding from the university and the American Heart Association, which allows Brooks to go to Walmart and BJ’s to pick up food in bulk. She pays close attention to what items are most popular, but she also tries to stock the shelves with healthy foods and cultural items, like jollof rice, a West African dish.

The university’s nursing program also partners with the pantry to mark items with nutritional value. There are color-coded stickers attached to each item, red being least healthy and green for the most nutritious.

“We don’t want to parent them, so we give them the ability to make healthy, informed decisions based on what they eat,” Brooks explained.

Lately, universities like Coppin State and UMBC have expanded their pantry offerings to include sanitary products and clothing. At UMBC, a shelf of winter coats sits above a basket of hats, scarves and other cold weather essentials.

Coppin State this year created the President’s and First Lady’s Boutique, a free clothing store with winter essentials and formal wear for job interviews and galas.

The university offers in-state tuition to students from states with no historically Black colleges, which means that oftentimes students from warmer climates, like Arizona, end up in Baltimore to earn their college degrees and don’t have adequate jackets.

That’s where the boutique comes in.

“We want to make sure, from an institutional standpoint, that we are being as resourceful as possible,” said Robert Wright, special assistant to the vice president for enrollment management and student affairs at the university. “It helps our retention, as well.”

At Coppin State, Brooks is the only full-time employee focusing on the essentials pantry. She and Wright have big plans for the future: Food demonstrations, more partnerships, better advertising.

But for now, Brooks said, they’re focused on fundraising.

“We’re campaigning right now and looking for donors from across all spectrums,” she said. “You don’t really hear about food insecurity at college campuses, so we’re trying to elevate the issue a bit more.”

About the Education Hub

This reporting is part of The Banner’s Education Hub, community-funded journalism that provides parents with resources they need to make decisions about how their children learn. Read more.