Laura Mckenna's Article On Community College Students Struggle With Food Insecurity

Laura McKenna’s article reports on Sara Goldrick-Rab’s research on community college students that struggle with food security. Goldrick-Rab’s survey of ten community colleges nationwide “suggest[s] that more than half of all community-college students struggle with food insecurity” (McKenna). The article explains the two types of food insecurity the research found within the students: poverty before going into college and poverty caused by higher education cost. The study also shows that many of these community college students are not the typical young adults fresh from high school, and that many are individuals with families and jobs and could be part of the factor of food insecurity. McKenna points out how hunger can affect these students’

McKenna points out how students cut their class and study time to work more hours, hunger only makes the students weak and distracted, and that government assistance is not a reliable source to go to in times of need. Student will have to cut their education time for work and will only delay in finishing any sort of degree. Being hungry and trying to work on any school work that requires focus will only cause failing grades and general Health (McKenna). Hunger is a primary, basic need that needs to be satisfied first before anything else can happen. Government programs like SNAP have so much paper work, long waiting times in offices, and unrealistic requirements to maintain eligibility for SNAP that it is not even worth the hassle to apply

The use of pathos was mostly toward emotional sadness and pity toward the college students. In Goldrick-Rab’s study, a lot of students had to “cut the size of their meals or skipped meals and were hungry because they didn’t have enough money for food” (McKenna). Many people do not like to skip or cut the sizes of their meal. To read that students have to eat less or not eat at all invokes pity toward these unknown hunger students. Not having a lot of money always shows an emotional cry for help. Not having enough money to meet basic human needs strikes as horrible no matter who or what type of person affected. As The Atlantic website already states, McKenna used to be a professor of political science and writes for The Atlantic. Her ethos shows that she study for many years in college and that she is capable of doing research and writing logical papers. To prove her claim that community college students have food insecurity, she uses a study from “Sara Goldrick-Rab, a professor of education policy and sociology at University of Wisconsin, last year surveyed 4,000 students at 10 community colleges across the country” (McKenna). Her source comes from a university professor that studies education policy and sociology. She brings up many logical points into her article. To prove her claim,