The Edge: Policy Momentum in the Right Direction

• In conjunction with last week’s White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health, an organization that helps connect people to government resources announced it would release a tool kit in early 2023 specifically for higher-education institutions to identify students who are likely to be eligible for food assistance, Medicaid, and the new Affordable Connectivity Program, which provides $30 a month toward internet service. The organization, Benefits Data Trust, says its tool kit could be useful in helping colleges guide students through the complexities of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. Pre-pandemic, an estimated two million college students were eligible for but not participating in SNAP — a gap the group attributes to confusion about eligibility on the part of students and their institutions The conference also prompted several calls for reform, including a proposal from New America to scrap altogether the SNAP provisions that create so many hurdles for college students to qualify.

• President Biden’s student-loan forgiveness “created a ticking time bomb for fundamental reform” of higher education, Kevin Carey, of New America, writes in Slate. The first step should be for the federal government to “ditch its one-size-fits-all grant and loan system,” he says, “and split the program in three: one for short-term, job-focused credentials; one for traditional undergraduate degrees; and one for graduate and professional school.”

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