“There’s So Much That We’re Doing”: How Florida College System Institutions Address Basic Needs Insecurity Among Students

Research Question: A sizable portion of college students experience food and housing insecurity, which poses a roadblock to fully and successfully engaging in higher education. In light of these complex challenges, we ask: How do Florida College System (FCS) institutions meet the basic needs of their students? Methods: To answer the question at hand, we conducted an embedded single case study of the FCS. Between 2014 and 2019, researchers traveled to 21 Florida colleges on one or more occasions to speak with college presidents, administrators, faculty members, advisors, academic support staff, and students. In total, we gathered data from 1,379 people through 213 focus group sessions and 20 individual interviews. Results: From these data emerged evidence of the extensive services and support programs provided by FCS institutions, ranging from food and housing assistance to clothing, transportation, and childcare. Such initiatives aim to meet the chronic, daily needs of students and their families, as well as acute needs that arise out of local disasters and crises. Contributions: The findings of this study contribute to the literature on the mission of community colleges. While these support programs address needs traditionally considered non-academic, participants suggest that they are essential to fostering student success. By meeting students’ physiological and safety needs, institutions can better accomplish their academic goals of remediation, transfer, vocational training, and contract education, particularly among students who have been traditionally excluded from higher education. The findings also highlight the importance of acknowledging the needs of students’ families when providing support.

families, as well as needs that arise suddenly out of local disasters and crises.While such programs are beyond the boundaries of traditional "academic support" (e.g., tutoring and writing labs), participants suggest that these efforts allow the colleges to accomplish better their academic mission of educating students who have been traditionally excluded from other segments of higher education.

Literature Review
Community colleges cater to a distinct population of students.Compared to their 4-year college and university counterparts, community colleges enroll a larger percentage of racially minoritized and female students (Snyder et al., 2019).Nationally representative data from the Beginning Postsecondary Study of 2003 to 2004 conducted by the National Center for Education Statistics revealed that nearly 30% of dependent community college students were low-income, with over 20% falling at or below the federal poverty line (Cohen et al., 2014).Further, 25% of community college students were parents, 78% worked part-or full-time, and 45% were first generation students (Cohen et al., 2014).
In some ways, the FCS student population is reflective of national trends.For example, 65% of FCS students were enrolled part-time in 2015 (Florida Department of Education, n.d.a), compared with 61% nationwide (Snyder et al., 2019).In other ways, the FCS is unique compared with other state systems.The percentage of racially minoritized students enrolled within the FCS (58%; Florida Department of Education, n.d.a) exceeded the national average (49%) in 2016 (Ginder et al., 2018).Additionally, the average age of students was 25 years old, which is several years younger than the national average of 29 (Florida Department of Education, n.d.a).

Challenges Facing College Students
Research is clear that community college students face a number of challenges in their pursuit of postsecondary education, often stemming from individual characteristics and/or structural inequality.For example, community college students, who commonly work for pay, struggle to engage with their campuses while balancing their school and work demands simultaneously (Marine Nin & Keeton, 2020;Price & Tovar, 2014).Further, community colleges are becoming more globalized institutions, with an increasing number of international and undocumented students who must overcome hurdles related to immigration and English as a second language (Anayah & Kuk, 2015;Park, 2019;Salinas et al., 2019).
Broadly, the challenges facing community college students can be categorized as academic, economic, or social and informational hurdles (Goldrick-Rab, 2010).In recent years, scholars have become particularly interested in the prevalence and impact of economic hurdles, as the cost of college rises and need-based financial aid and family income stagnate (Goldrick-Rab, 2016).What they have found is that financial struggles are associated with basic needs insecurity.Current studies estimate that more than half of community college students are food insecure, meaning they have limited or uncertain access to nutritious foods (Broton & Goldrick-Rab, 2018;Goldrick-Rab et al., 2015;Maroto et al., 2015).These rates constitute a significant issue, and are much higher than food insecurity among the general U.S. population (14%; Coleman-Jensen et al., 2015).Housing insecurity impacts at least one-third of community college students (Broton & Goldrick-Rab, 2018), with housing-related concerns ranging from an inability to fully pay rent (18%) and utility bills (22%; Goldrick-Rab et al., 2015), to homelessness (between 10% and 14%; Broton, 2020;Broton & Goldrick-Rab, 2018;Dubick et al., 2016;Goldrick-Rab et al., 2015).
Although documented rates of basic needs insecurity vary from sample to sample, they are consistently higher for those at 2-year colleges compared to those at 4-year colleges (Broton, 2020;Broton & Goldrick-Rab, 2018).These issues are also particularly salient for students who already face marginalization for being LGBTQ+, current or former foster youth, and students of color, as well as for those who have dependents (Hallett & Crutchfield, 2017;Vang et al., 2017, Vasquez et al., 2019;Wood & Harris, 2018).
A growing body of literature has begun to shed light on how academic disruptions caused by material hardship negatively affect students' educational experiences.For example, food and housing insecurity can negatively affect students' class attendance and academic performance, as measured by GPA (Maroto et al., 2015;Patton-López et al., 2014;Phillips et al., 2018;Silva et al., 2017).This is likely due, in part, to the fact that material hardship gets in the way of students buying required course textbooks, attending class, and seeing their courses through to completion (Dubick et al., 2016).Students with food insecurities also struggle to maintain confidence in their academic abilities, feelings of belonging on campus, a sense of control over academic matters, and interest in their coursework (Wood et al., 2016).What is more, basic needs insecurity increases the prevalence of students experiencing poor health days, poor mental health, and inactive days (Crutchfield & Maguire, 2018).

Food and Housing Programs Designed to Meet Students' Needs
A comprehensive literature about the support programs colleges have implemented in response to rising basic needs insecurity does not yet exist (Broton et al., 2020;Fincher et al., 2018).There are, however, a growing number of reports published about individual efforts to combat one issue or another.For instance, in September 2018, the College and University Food Bank Alliance reported a growing membership of 686 colleges that currently had or were in the process of developing food pantries to address food insecurity.This is a marked increase, up from 88 participating campuses just 6 years earlier (Goldrick-Rab et al., 2018).Another study of 351 institutions found that about 12% hosted a food pantry or food assistance program for students (Fincher et al., 2018).To generate an even greater impact, some colleges and universities have co-located poverty-alleviating supports, like food pantries, in close proximity to other campus services to reduce barriers and lower the stigma of using such services (Twill et al., 2016).
Although providing safe and affordable housing has proved more challenging, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has partnered with postsecondary institutions in recent years to make some initial strides (Sackett et al., 2016).An example of one such partnership exists between Washington's Tacoma Community College and the Tacoma Housing Authority; together, they provide housing vouchers to students who meet minimum eligibility requirements, such as full-time enrollment and a 2.0 grade point average (Broton & Goldrick-Rab, 2016;Goldrick-Rab et al., 2017).It is important to note that more research and evaluation are still needed to determine the effectiveness of programs such as these (Silva et al., 2017).
Unfortunately, research also shows that students do not always access the resources available to them.More than 2 million students, or 57% of potentially eligible lowincome students, did not participate in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) in 2016 (United States Government Accountability Office, 2018).On a more local level, only 38% of food insecure students at the University of Florida reported food pantry use in the fall of 2017 (El Zein et al., 2018).These same resources are similarly underused within the California State University system (Crutchfield & Maguire, 2018).In terms of mental health, only one-half of the students experiencing a current or recent mental health condition are receiving treatment (Eisenberg et al., 2016).Research explains this underutilization of campus resources as the product of several barriers: social stigma, a lack of information, an absence of pre-existing social and cultural capital, and inconvenient hours (El Zein et al., 2018;Gupton, 2017;Hallett et al., 2018, Karp et al., 2008).

Theoretical Framework
We use Maslow's (1943) Theory of Human Motivation to highlight the importance of support programs for community college student success.Maslow posits five levels of human needs: physiological needs, safety, love and belonging, and esteem-and selfactualization.He presents these levels as a pyramid, such that lower level needs must be met before an individual can move on and consider higher level needs.Applied to higher education, this means that physiological (e.g., food, water, and shelter) and safety (e.g., security, employment, and health) needs must be satisfied before students can appropriately shift their focus to coursework.While Maslow's model is not without criticism (e.g., Kenrick et al., 2010), it does explain the importance of addressing students' basic needs before trying to improve college outcomes, like persistence and completion, by other means (Goldrick-Rab, 2018).

Research Design
We conducted an embedded, single-case study of the Florida College System (Yin, 2014).Case studies, like this one, allow researchers to examine multiple units of analysis (21 individual colleges) embedded within the context of a larger case (the FCS) to answer "how" and "why" questions about a complex phenomenon (Yin, 2014).In the findings section that follows, we report on themes evident in two kinds of qualitative data-focus groups and individual interviews-gathered from college presidents, administrators, faculty, advisors, and students.
To accomplish this task, we assembled a large research team consisting of four Black women (including two Afro-Caribbean women), three Chinese women, six White women, one Black man, one Chinese man, and four White men.Each of the researchers brought important contributions to the data collection and analysis processes.For instance, at least three team members had previously worked with students and faculty on community college campuses.Their professional experience played an important role in shaping the questions that we asked of participants and the interpretation of data.While the five international women on the project were significantly less familiar with U.S. community college structures at the start of the project, they were able to ask clarifying questions which, in turn, facilitated the team's collective understanding of the data and further refined our data collection and analysis processes.
It is important to note that data collection was motivated by a different research focus, namely developmental education reform.In 2013, the Florida legislature passed Senate Bill 1720, making placement testing and developmental education optional for some students.For this reason, we sought out the perspectives of campus personnelespecially faculty and advisors-who worked with academically underprepared students.However, it was through this process that important, yet unanticipated, findings related to support programs emerged.

Data Collection
In the summer of 2014, we reached out to provosts and vice presidents at all 28 FCS institutions to invite them to participate in our research.Data collection began in the fall of 2014 with 2-day site visits to the first 10 FCS institutions that expressed interest.In the 4 academic years that followed, we visited 11 additional FCS institutions for a total sample size of 21 colleges.The remaining seven FCS institutions, whose voices are not represented here, were invited to participate as well but declined for reasons that were not disclosed to us.Nevertheless, the resulting sample reflects colleges of various sizes, demographics, and locales.
Representatives at the participating colleges partnered with us to design site visit agendas centered on conversations with campus personnel and students of varying backgrounds and personal experiences.College personnel also did the important work of recruiting participants, reserving on-campus space, and often arranging luncheons to incentivize student participation.Two or more researchers attended each site visit and, in addition to conducting focus group and individual interview sessions, spent time walking around the campus to observe student life, advising sessions, and class sessions.
On these visits, we spoke with college presidents, administrators, faculty members, advisors, academic support staff, and students.By speaking with such a diverse group of participants across time, place, and institutional role, we were able to engage in triangulation (Flick, 2018).In total, we gathered data from 1,379 people through 213 focus group sessions and 20 individual interviews.These focus groups and interviews ranged between 11 and 103 minutes, with a mean length of 47 minutes.
Focus groups.The primary data source for this research was focus group data gathered from 1,359 participants during 213 different sessions with administrators, faculty, advisors, and students.Early in the project, the focus of data collection was exclusively on developmental education reform.Questions revolved specifically around the decisions and changes being made by campus personnel and their impact on students.Despite this focus, campus personnel spoke about the numerous challenges facing their students and college-led solutions.In time, we revised our protocol for administrators, faculty, and advisors to probe participants more accurately about this emergent finding.Accordingly, our questions for campus personnel in the last year of the project emphasized institutional mission, culture, and values which, for participants, were often related to the college's efforts to support student achievement in holistic ways.
Throughout the entire project, students were asked questions about their personal challenges, help-seeking behavior, and support services offered by the college.Due to the sensitive nature of this topic, we were careful to ask general, open ended questions that gave students the opportunity to disclose personal information, or not, depending on their level of comfort.In addition, all participants, including students, were assured that they could cease their participation in the study at any point without penalty or repercussions.Time was also given for participants of all types to share thoughts and feelings beyond the scope of the focus group questions.This opportunity often yielded rich data about the kinds of support colleges provided for their students in addition to more traditional curriculum and instruction.
Interviews.The second data source for this project was a combination of in-person and telephone interviews with 20 individuals, spread across several stakeholder groups.Seven interviews were with students, seven were with administrators, and six were with college presidents.The questions guiding these interviews were similar to those guiding the focus group sessions, and largely produced similar data.For this reason, we do not distinguish the source of data in the findings section that follows.

Data Analysis
At the conclusion of each site visit, we generated verbatim transcripts from the recordings made of the focus groups and interviews.We then imported the transcripts into NVivo for analysis.
The data for this study were analyzed in two cycles of coding (Saldaña, 2015).During the first round of coding, a team of qualitative researchers applied a priori and emergent codes to the data, with special attention paid to: institutional culture and mission, specific student populations, and college-sponsored support programs.During this process, the prevalence of support programs became evident as participants emphasized the aspects of their institutions' work that extended beyond traditional academic endeavors.The second round of coding allowed one researcher to identify patterns in these programs and initiatives, as presented under the broader headings in the findings section.
We concluded the data analysis process with member checking.We first generated institutional reports for each campus visit.Then, we distributed electronic copies of these reports to participating college personnel and students each year via email, along with annual summaries of our state-wide findings, so that participants could confirm or challenge our interpretations and benefit from any timely research findings.We also invited several colleagues familiar with the topic of this work to serve as devil's advocates or critical friends (Miles et al., 2014;Patton, 2015).

Findings
The FCS mission statement commits "to provide access to high-quality, affordable academic and career educational programs that maximize student learning and success, develop a globally competitive workforce and respond rapidly to diverse state and community needs" (Florida Department of Education, n.d.b).We found the FCS institutions do much more than what is communicated in their mission statement.According to participants, maximizing "student learning and success" often involves: (1) meeting the basic needs of students and their families, (2) providing auxiliary services related to transportation, childcare, etc., and (3) acting as centers for disaster relief.While institutions identified a number of other contributions to student success, those represented here were consistently mentioned by participants across multiple campuses.

Meeting Basic Needs
As previously noted, a large proportion of community college students nationwide find themselves without basic resources, facing food and/or housing insecurity.This trend has been observed by campus personnel within the FCS, as well.According to an advisor: Our demographics are probably a lot like state colleges across the state.Our average student age is, I think, 26.Lots of people have jobs, families.It's not your typical 18-yearold student that has support from the parents.And we have a significant number of homeless students, students that face food scarcity, housing problems.So lots of other life issues going on. ..We end up supporting them in social and life ways that maybe universities don't deal with possibly as much.
Campus personnel were keenly aware of the impact these circumstances could have on student outcomes.Some participants spoke of basic needs insecurity as a distraction in the classroom and others, as a cause for dropping out of school entirely.According to one faculty member: Students [are] coming to school hungry. .., some of them are homeless.Some of them don't have transportation, cannot afford fuel.They have lost their jobs.They don't have daycare or child care.And so when they go into the classroom and they are about five minutes late and if they find the door closed or they cannot enter and if the professor has an attitude. ..They're not quite what we would want to think of as educational needs per se in terms of the role of the institution to satisfy those needs, but they have an impact on their academic performance.
Similarly, an administrator at another college explained, "We always wonder, 'Why do we lose students?Why do students fail?' Most of the time, it is things that don't have to do with the classroom.It's outside." In response, at least 18 of the 21 FCS institutions included in this research actively sought to reduce the basic needs insecurity of their students.The most commonly described initiatives were food pantries.As two advisors, together, shared, these college-sponsored foods pantries often started small and have expanded over time out of necessity: Advisor 1: Something increasingly I think that's coming to sort of define us in the area is the food pantry. ..That is something students have been utilizing, and many departments helping out with that.Advisor 2: It started at [one] campus.It actually was a faculty committee that came together. ..Student engagement has taken over the development of it. ..It's inhouse, so we only get donations from the [college] community.And so there are large campaigns, and a lot of departments have come on board to help to collect items throughout the year.
In addition to food, some pantries also stock hygiene products, baby items, and school supplies.To access these services, most colleges require little beyond presenting a valid college ID.According to an advisor at one college, "They don't ask questions.
[Students] come in, they take what they need, and then they go on."These food pantries were widely used, with college personnel informally reporting anywhere from 20 to 75 students dropping in each day to pick up needed items.Although these efforts were explicitly aimed at the well-being of students, we found that students' parents, children, and siblings also benefitted.According to a faculty member: If you look at our demographics, we cater to students who. ..have come from a low socioeconomic group. ..We provide food and other supplies to them so that they can come to school and focus, and to their families, too.So that's a very important part of us, and in terms of serving the community and our students.
As evidenced here, college personnel understand that meeting the needs of students sometimes involves meeting the needs of their dependents as well.
While it is fairly straightforward for colleges to combat hunger, precarious housing is more difficult to address.While FCS campus personnel did not mention free, campus-sponsored housing accommodations, they did describe efforts to get students connected with federal social service programs for housing.This happened in a variety of ways, the most common being single-stop resource centers.As one administrator noted: We've also seen an increase in our homeless students and I still don't think it's accurate because who wants to say 'I'm homeless,' you know. ..We now have, in the last year, the single-stop program. ..where you apply for. ..those types of social services benefits.It's one of our grant programs that just came on board. ..That is growing, as well, in terms of the number of students who are applying for social services.

Providing Auxiliary Services
In addition to food and housing, participants at nearly every college called attention to other services their institutions provide-free of charge-to students, such as: closets of professional clothes for individuals to use for job interviews and career advancement, eyeglasses, financial and legal counseling, tax assistance, bus passes, and childcare for student parents.Of these resources, an advisor said: We have financial coaching that's available to our students.We have food vouchers on some of the campuses.Bus passes.Just a lot of resources to kind of keep our students engaged.And an opportunity -a place for them to come. ..,where anything is on the table.You know, some of our students might be suicidal.They may not have food for that day.They might not have a bus card. ..,whatever the situation is.But making sure that when they leave our space or our office that they're leaving better than they came in with more resources in their pockets.
Depending on the college, these resources also included tuition and fee waivers, special scholarships, cash assistance, and gift cards for students who demonstrate financial need or homelessness.However, the same advisor clarified: Sometimes, it's not necessarily monetary, but spiritually and emotionally, that they're able to walk out feeling more alive and cared for and loved.And knowing that people want to be in their lives.And we are rooting for them.We want to see them succeed.
Fulfilling students' spiritual and emotional needs often came in the form of mental health services provided by many FCS institutions, either directly through campus personnel or via a Student Assistance Program offered in partnership with behavioral health providers.In most cases, students are eligible for three to five free, face-to-face, telephone, or virtual counseling sessions per academic year.As one advisor explained, "All the student has to do is just pick up the phone and call.They can just say what school they belong to, and then they hook them up with a counselor right then. ..It's very, very, very confidential."Some colleges also expanded the training and professional development provided to faculty and staff to include information about basic needs insufficiency, particularly as experienced by certain marginalized student populations.According to an administrator at one college, "for the first time this year, we had faculty and staff to go through. ..Safe Zone Training. . .[and] mental health first aid training, which again is very intertwined with this, you know, the trans community, homelessness, and addiction." While training is present in the data, it is not as prevalent and cross-cutting of a theme as other programs and services.Indeed, at some colleges, it was identified as an opportunity for improvement.In the words of one advisor: When I moved from [one campus to another]. ..I was totally not equipped.Like there needs to be training.And I think we're getting better about the training for staff, but we employ a large number of student assistants, and just trying to know how to deal with these situations.
Numerous training topics are relevant to the subject matter at hand, but this particular advisor desired training on supporting students in crisis.
Although none of these initiatives are directly related to teaching and learning outcomes, they are part of a robust effort to support the college's academic aims indirectly.As one administrator explained: We offer support services on this campus that I [had] never heard of before I came here because the college mission elsewhere was to do a good job for those students who could afford to come and go to college.And we're trying to reach out to anybody who wants it, whether they can afford it or not.

Acting as Centers for Disaster Relief
We also found that colleges play a crucial role in helping their students recover from local crises that arise unexpectedly.During data collection (2014)(2015)(2016)(2017)(2018)(2019), the state of Florida sustained significant damage from Hurricanes Irma and Michael.Reflecting on these and other natural disasters, participants at three colleges spoke of how their institutions responded by providing resources to students and campus personnel to minimize the negative impact on their academic studies.
In one particular instance, a number of students lost crucial school supplies during a hurricane and the college helped to replace them.According to an administrator: We checked in with them [students], and they told us what they were missing.If it was a textbook, we replaced it.If it was their bike [that] was destroyed and that's the way they make it to campus, they got a new bike.Same thing with laptops.
Funding for this effort was generously provided by other FCS institutions located around the state.In addition, the college made vacant dormitory rooms available to those who were temporarily displaced from their homes.
Notably, colleges recognized that helping students involved helping their immediate family as well.One campus personnel reflected, "After we had [the] hurricane come through, we had a lot of students that were very hungry and hadn't had food in a long time."In response, the college decided to open a food pantry "for students that need food, and families that need food, and even employees that at some point in time may need food.So it reaches out to the family. ..We take care of each other." Participants also reported that colleges did more than simply meeting short-term needs; they also helped facilitate long-term community restoration.One administrator, reflecting on a hurricane that barraged the college decades ago, praised her institution's long-standing commitment to the local community: Most of us remember [the] hurricane. ..It devastated this entire area, including the campus. ..We lost 53% of our enrollment, and many people in the community left and never returned. ..We could've decided to pull out totally or stay, but decided to stay because there was a critical educational need in this area.
In some ways, these findings of disaster relief are particular to Florida, but not entirely.Countless other colleges in other states have participated in disaster recovery following storms like Hurricane Katrina (e.g., Johnson et al., 2006).Moreover, natural disasters often result in the widespread displacement of affected individuals.Not only have FCS institutions chosen to help current students, but they have also welcomed in new students whose studies were interrupted by natural disasters elsewhere.Documenting the impact of the 2010 earthquake in Haiti and Hurricane Maria on the FCS, one participant explained that, "going back a number of years, the temporary protective status from students coming from Haiti from the earthquakes [reshaped the composition of our student body]."Additionally, she noted that other FCS institutions previously saw an influx of Puerto Rican students displaced by Hurricane Maria.In these, and other situations, FCS institutions revealed themselves to be responsive and adaptive to the needs of students, even beyond their immediate communities.All in all, as one faculty member said, "There is so much that we are doing, we can hardly keep track of it."

Advertising Services to Students
Participants reported that the resources and services described by this research were advertised to students during advising sessions, in orientation, online, and by faculty.Illustrating this point, one advisor described how she often embeds such referrals into advising conversations: The other thing that I am giving, a lot. ..,[are referrals to the] free mental health counseling, because we have a lot of people with a lot of heavy duty issues going on in their lives.And, they are very leery of asking for help, and so how you present that information [is important]-how it's confidential, and how it's there to be a service to you.And, I always share [that] students that I have referred have been very grateful for the service, and come back and said it's really impacted their performance in school and their lives.
Other campus personnel went beyond raising awareness and connected students directly to services.According to one English professor, once students have expressed a need he personally walks them to an on-campus service center to be sure they get the necessary help: We're not going to disclose personal information if they don't want us to, but usually if the student is writing about it [for an in-class assignment], they kind of want somebody to read it and offer help.And so, you can walk them down to the center or to a contact, disability services, wherever it is they need help.Sometimes they just need somebody to take them there. ..We don't just say, 'Just go talk to this person.'A lot of times we'll make the call, or we'll take them there just to have that extra support, because it is uncomfortable for them to say, 'By the way, I'm hungry today.I need food.'But if you have a trust relationship with a professor, that can help diffuse the situation.
Although this is the story of just one professor's actions, similar actions were widely reported by other participants in the FCS.For this reason, one student reflected that, "the school's taken pretty good care of us, I think." However, despite these efforts, there was some evidence of students still not knowing about services and/or not using them.According to one student, "a lot of people don't know about these specific programs, and it's like, everyone is lost."Another student lauded the supports offered by the college, but wished she had learned of them sooner.When asked, "What was one thing that you wish you had known about college then that you know now?" she responded: Furthermore, those who are aware of the services may choose not to access them.In the candid words of one student: I've had personal problems-not really academic-but I haven't really used a campus resource like I should. . .You can find help, but I've never really felt like I could.Like I know I have the option to, but I never felt like I could just go and do it.
Reflecting on the reason why, the student further explained, "Maybe that's just because I might have some sort of social anxiety, or I just don't do it.But I know that there are options here, I just don't take them because I've never really seen anybody really like welcome me into it."Faculty members hypothesized that students do not access available resources because they do not realize the services apply to them and their own experiences, even when their experiences, according to one faculty member, include a "traumatic brain injury. .., recovering after a tour of duty, or [caring for the] significant illness of a family member."The faculty member further explained: Not that students are unwilling to seek help, but it's almost like they don't see that that's something that would warrant assistance. . .I've pulled in a number of students and they're like, 'I don't need any help 'cause I'm not dealing with anything anyone else isn't dealing with. ..' Campus personnel also believed that students did not make help-seeking a priority amidst other, competing commitments.According to an advisor: We have support services that go beyond English and math. . .It is just sometimes students have so many responsibilities and it's hard for them to find the time or make the time to go and see the people they need to see to be successful.

Discussion
Through this work, we found that FCS institutions: (1) meet the basic needs of students and their families, (2) provide auxiliary services related to transportation, childcare, etc., and (3) act as centers for disaster relief.Referring back to Maslow's (1943) Theory of Human Motivation, we see that college personnel, through these programs and initiatives, are able to attend to the physiological and safety needs of college students, which can, in turn, facilitate increased student success.Unfortunately, this research also suggested that, despite efforts to connect students with robust resources, some are unaware of the supports available to them or choose not to make use of them.
The first finding related to food and housing support was expected based on the current state of higher education literature, which has clearly documented high rates of basic needs insecurity.However, the other two findings emerged during data analysis and were a bit unexpected.None of the literature that we reviewed in preparation for this research foreshadowed the widespread presence of professional clothing closets, legal aid, free counseling, cash assistance, disaster relief efforts, or the multitude of other services available on community college campuses.We highlight them in our analysis in order to expand understanding of all that is being done on behalf of students.
The findings presented here are institutional commitments and priorities expressed by participants within the FCS.Although this is not a complete picture of all that community colleges do across the country, we hope that our work sparks additional scholarship on this topic, particularly as community colleges step in to aid in the current fight against the coronavirus pandemic.Although the situation is still emerging, we can already see that 2-and 4-year institutions have supported their students and broader communities in important ways by donating masks, face shields, and other personal protective equipment; repurposing vacant space as testing sites and healthcare facilities; providing food and other supplies to community members; and much more (The Chronicle of Higher Education, 2020).
Our findings contribute to the literature in several important ways.For one, our work builds upon the contemporary conversation about student needs.While access to food and housing are certainly the most significant challenges students face, the participants in our study add that the struggle to afford school supplies, clothing, transportation, health care, and quality childcare impede academic success.Unexpected community-wide crises and disasters also constitute a significant hurdle to educational progress.Considering these many challenges, our work highlights and celebrates the distinctive contributions of 21 community colleges and their campus personnel to expanding access to higher education to students in these circumstances.By providing food, clothing, mental health counseling, and more, community colleges are able to remove barriers and help all students more successfully attain their academic goals.
Notably, community colleges manage to provide all of these supports in spite of their limited operating budgets, seeing as they receive fewer state dollars per student than even primary and secondary schools (Mellow & Heelan, 2008).Unfortunately, supports like the ones aforementioned are often underfunded and vulnerable to budget cuts (Karp et al., 2008).This scholarship, which documents the experiences and efforts of individuals across Florida, can provide valuable insight for state legislators who set and allocate education funding.
Finally, because students are often caregivers, our work shows that efforts to address physiological needs cannot stop at the individual student.FCS institutions have realized that services are most effective when they extend to immediate family members as well.Similarly, we see here that the health and stability of the surrounding community also impact students and must be considered.When crises occur, community colleges have the opportunity to play an important role in disseminating crucial resources to students and their families, faculty, and staff.

Conclusions and Implications
In 1994, the Committee for Economic Development stated that "schools . . .should not be asked to solve all our nation's social ills and cultural problems.State and community agencies, not the school, should pay and provide needed social services" (as cited in Bailey & Averionova, 1998, p. 16).Despite this recommendation, we found that FCS institutions do provide a wide variety of social services in an effort to support students in their pursuit of transfer preparation, vocational education, remedial or developmental education, and contract education.More specifically, our examination of 21 institutions revealed that colleges provide basic and additional resources for their students, and help students recover after disasters or community-wide crises.
The research findings produce several recommendations for future practice.To begin, the minimal references to faculty and staff training in the data was telling.Campus personnel seemed aware of basic needs insecurity, but did not often mention opportunities for training about the subject matter.This is a national challenge, with other research finding that faculty and staff awareness of basic needs insecurity among students varies greatly (Broton & Goldrick-Rab, 2016).Therefore, we recommend increased efforts toward this end in the future so that campus personnel are better equipped to support students in vulnerable situations.
Secondly, we acknowledge that just because colleges go to great lengths to offer support and resources does not mean students make full use of them.Although the FCS has worked hard to advertise available resources to their students, some students still did not know about the services or chose not to use them.Finding better ways to reduce stigma and increase knowledge of these services is imperative.
Finally, while FCS institutions have implemented quite an impressive array of support services, there is potentially more that could be done.First and foremost, better identification of homeless and highly mobile students would be helpful in connecting those students with the resources necessary for their success (Gupton, 2017).Some scholars in this field have also recommended growth in farmers' markets and campus community gardens, emergency housing, and the use of cheaper or open source textbooks (Dubick et al., 2016).Others have suggested greater collaboration between postsecondary institutions-as in the case of the California State University system's "Basic Needs Initiative" (Trawver et al., 2020)-and between colleges and their local community leaders (Broton & Goldrick-Rab, 2016).We envision that our work can play a role in increasing conversations between education researchers, community college personnel, and community stakeholders for the sake of the public good.The health and future of community colleges, their students, and their respective communities are intrinsically woven together, with all three groups standing to benefit from greater understanding of the role that colleges play in the lives of their students.
They help you if you are suffering. . .Say, for instance, I'm homeless.They can support you with that, like find housing.I didn't know that [at first]. ..I'm not homeless, but I'm just saying. . .stuff can happen.Like, you can get evicted from your house.They support you.They've got really good support system.