The Need in the Numbers: Unpacking the 2025 Campus Leader Survey Data

Swipe Out Hunger’s annual Campus Leader Survey (CLS) asks our network: what does student hunger look like on your campus? In partnership with Trellis Strategies, the 2025 Campus Leader Survey collected critical data about college food insecurity across the country and what trends leaders are seeing on their campuses today. During the 2024–2025 academic year, the survey found that on-campus food programs had to navigate a substantial rise in student need, find new ways to ensure student anonymity, and contend with significant funding gaps.

In response to the unique challenges campus leaders described, Swipe Out Hunger has published a new report to take a closer look at the data. The report, Greater Impact, Fewer Resources, gives a deeper understanding of the survey’s methodology, what we learned from the results, and where we need to go from here to address college hunger. This is a great resource for campus leaders who want to share key findings with administrators, funders, or legislators—especially to introduce and contextualize the issue of college student hunger.

This new report is a more in-depth exploration of our 2025 CLS Data Dashboard, which shows overall trends from this year’s survey. The dashboard also allows users to look at data from individual states, while the report focuses on the national landscape. Community members looking for a high-level, visual snapshot of college hunger in their state or nationwide can use the 2025 CLS Data Dashboard to search for up-to-date statistics. Regardless of what you need, the CLS report and dashboard work together to help you tell the story of college food insecurity.

Campus leader voices are critical to understanding the college food security landscape. Share your thoughts in the 2026 Campus Leader Survey, now open for responses!