Impact of COVID-Era Eligibility Changes on CalFresh Eligibility Rates Among California Community College Students, 2017-2021

A line chart shows how COVID-era policy changes increased the share of Community College Students who were eligible for CalFresh, and how the share of eligible students would have decreased without these changes. There is one line that starts in 2017 at about 22% and stays relatively stable until about mid-2020, when it splits into two lines. The solid blue line, representing the actual share of students who were eligible (and reflecting the COVID-era policy changes) sharply increases, getting up to about 31% by 2021, then declining to about 25% by 2022. A dotted line represents the share of students that would have been eligible if the policies had not changed. It increases slightly in mid 2020 (but not as steeply as the dark blue line), then in 2021, it begins to decrease, ending at about 19% in 2022.