Education Beyond High School Opens the Door to Economic Stability

• By age 40, earning a bachelor’s degree is associated with $18,400 more in annual income compared to those without one, based on longitudinal data tracking economically disadvantaged young adults. Earning an associate degree is associated with reduced poverty and improved economic mobility.¹
• The median earnings of those with a bachelor’s degree are 59% higher than the earnings of those whose highest level of attainment is a high school diploma.²
• Homelessness and education have a bidirectional relationship. Young adults who experienced homelessness were less than one-third as likely to be enrolled in a four-year college as stably housed peers, yet higher education also appears to be a protective factor against young adult homelessness.³

A Significant Number of College Students Experience Homelessness

• The federal National Postsecondary Student Aid Study (NPSAS) found that 8% of undergraduates and 5% of graduate students experienced homelessness in 2019, approximately 1.5 million students.⁴
• New federal longitudinal data from the Beginning Postsecondary Students Longitudinal Study (BPS:20/22) confirm that student hardship is not temporary. In academic year 2021–22 – two years after students began college – 5.5% of enrolled students reported recent homelessness and 18.6% experienced housing insecurity, meaning nearly one in five enrolled students (19.9%) experienced some form of housing-related hardship.⁵
• A Fall 2025 survey of more than 845,000 undergraduate students at 153 institutions found that 11% reported experiences of homelessness. Among students who identified as experiencing homelessness, only 27% self-reported it when asked directly. Most described experiences such as couch surfing (49%), moving in with others due to financial problems (58%), or being forced out of their home (16%) — underscoring that relying on self-identification alone will miss the majority of students in need.⁶

Youth Experiencing Homelessness Face Significant Barriers to College Access — Especially Financial Aid

• Homeless youth face challenges that make it harder to pursue higher education: weak academic foundations, limited family support, lack of awareness of available resources, and burdensome financial aid rules that make it more difficult for unaccompanied homeless youth to obtain federal financial assistance for college.⁷
• For low-income young adults, access to both financial aid and public benefits is a strong predictor of degree completion. These support systems work together: benefits support enrollment and persistence; financial aid enables full-time engagement. Removing either weakens the pathway to a degree.⁸

Homelessness Is a Barrier to College Retention and Degree Completion

Research consistently shows that students experiencing homelessness face deeper hardship and more barriers to staying enrolled than first-generation students and other students – barriers that threaten their ability to stay enrolled and earn a degree. The consequences extend beyond individual hardship: when students leave without completing, the economic promise of higher education goes unrealized.

• Homelessness threatens persistence. New federal longitudinal data show that more than one-third of students who experienced homelessness in Year 1 were no longer enrolled by Year 3. Basic needs challenges are not a momentary adjustment to college life, they are a persistent obstacle to completion.⁹
• Homelessness rarely occurs in isolation. Students experiencing food insecurity have more than three times the odds of also experiencing homelessness. Students experiencing housing insecurity have nearly twelve times the odds of also experiencing homelessness, compounding already-fragile situations.¹⁰
• Financial hardship is nearly universal among homeless students. 91% of students who experienced homelessness reported financial difficulty while in college, compared with 66% of non-homeless students. Twenty-six percent were unable to pay or underpaid rent or mortgage in the prior 12 months, and 95% relied on credit cards to cover basic necessities — with most carrying balances month to month.¹¹
• Emergency financial assistance is poorly publicized. Federal data found that 69% of enrolled students did not know whether their institution offered emergency aid — and among students experiencing homelessness, 62.6% were unaware. Awareness, not the application process, is the primary barrier: among students who applied for aid, 92.9% received it.¹²
• Mental health challenges are elevated. Students experiencing homelessness were significantly more likely to screen positive for major depressive disorder (48%) and generalized anxiety disorder (61%), compared to 27% and 39% respectively among non-homeless peers.¹³
• Work demands are higher and more disruptive. Nearly three-quarters (74%) of students experiencing homelessness were working while enrolled, with almost four in ten working 40 or more hours per week. Nearly a third held two or more jobs — and were more likely to miss class due to job conflicts.¹⁴
• Transportation barriers disrupt attendance. More than a third (35%) of students experiencing homelessness missed at least one day of class in the prior semester due to unreliable transportation.¹⁵
• Student parents face compounding barriers. Twenty percent of students experiencing homelessness reported being a parent or primary caregiver. Among student parents, those experiencing homelessness were more likely to anticipate needing to drop classes, stop out, or bring children to class if child care were lost.¹⁶
• Institutional support gaps persist. Only 51% of students experiencing homelessness agreed their institution had support services for their situation, compared to 65% of non-homeless peers — and 21% actively disagreed, roughly double the rate of their peers.¹⁷

Institutions of Higher Education and Community Partners Are Responding

• Institutions have included questions about homelessness in their applications and have used other strategies, such as partnering with the financial aid office, to identify college students experiencing homelessness. SchoolHouse Connection has created a series of tip sheets summarizing best practices from across the nation on topics including: Transitioning from High School to College; Identifying Homeless College Students; Housing On and Off Campus; Accessing Financial Aid; Creating and Sustaining Campus-Based Programs; and Parenting Students.¹⁸
• SchoolHouse Connection and Trellis Strategies’ 2026 report highlights many practical actions for local institutions to better support college students experiencing homelessness.¹⁹

Strong K12 and FAFSA Federal Policies are on the Books, but Implementation Remains a Challenge

• Federal K12 education law (the McKinney-Vento Act) contains provisions designed to increase college readiness and access for homeless students, including requirements for counselors to prepare and advise homeless students for college and for school district liaisons to inform unaccompanied homeless youth of their status as independent students for federal aid. Implementation remains a barrier as many liaisons struggle to identify unaccompanied homeless youth or lack capacity to provide tailored assistance.²⁰
• In 2020, the FAFSA Simplification Act was signed into law, including significant revisions to the FAFSA for unaccompanied youth experiencing homelessness and former foster youth.²¹
• FAFSA data from the 2023–2024 cycle highlight early impacts of improved federal policy: a 28% increase in FAFSA completion for unaccompanied homeless youth. Data also show that Universal FAFSA state laws appear to correlate with increased completion. Still, unaccompanied homeless youth face challenges completing the FAFSA.²²

Footnotes

1 Child Trends (2025). Public Benefits and Financial Aid Support Education Beyond High School and Long-Term Economic Well-Being for Low-Income Young Adults. https://www.childtrends.org/publications/public-benefits-financial-aid-support-education-low-income-young-adults

2 U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (2024). Annual Earnings by Educational Attainment.

3 Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago (2019). Missed Opportunities: Education Among Youth Experiencing Homelessness in America.

4 National Center for Education Statistics (2023). National Postsecondary Student Aid Study (NPSAS:20). Approximately 1.5 million students based on undergraduate and graduate enrollment figures.

5 Hope Center for Student Basic Needs (June 11, 2026). New Longitudinal Federal Data Reveal a Troubling Reality: Students’ Basic Needs Insecurity Persists. Analysis of Beginning Postsecondary Students Longitudinal Study (BPS:20/22).

6 Trellis Strategies & SchoolHouse Connection (2026). 2025 Student Financial Wellness Survey. Fall 2025 survey of 845,000+ undergraduate students at 153 institutions across 23 states; n=9,057 students experiencing homelessness.

7 Government Accountability Office (2016). Higher Education: Actions Needed to Improve Access to Federal Financial Assistance for Homeless and Foster Youth.

8 Child Trends (2025). Public Benefits and Financial Aid Support Education Beyond High School and Long-Term Economic Well-Being for Low-Income Young Adults.

9  Hope Center for Student Basic Needs (June 11, 2026). New Longitudinal Federal Data Reveal a Troubling Reality: Students’ Basic Needs Insecurity Persists.

10  Hope Center for Student Basic Needs (June 11, 2026). New Longitudinal Federal Data Reveal a Troubling Reality: Students’ Basic Needs Insecurity Persists.

11 Trellis Strategies & SchoolHouse Connection (2026). 2025 Student Financial Wellness Survey.

12 Hope Center for Student Basic Needs (June 11, 2026). New Longitudinal Federal Data Reveal a Troubling Reality: Students’ Basic Needs Insecurity Persists. 69.1% of enrolled students did not know whether their institution offered emergency financial assistance; 62.6% of students experiencing homelessness were unaware.

13  Trellis Strategies & SchoolHouse Connection (2026). 2025 Student Financial Wellness Survey.

14  Trellis Strategies & SchoolHouse Connection (2026). 2025 Student Financial Wellness Survey.

15  Trellis Strategies & SchoolHouse Connection (2026). 2025 Student Financial Wellness Survey.

16  Trellis Strategies & SchoolHouse Connection (2026). 2025 Student Financial Wellness Survey.

17  Trellis Strategies & SchoolHouse Connection (2026). 2025 Student Financial Wellness Survey.

18  SchoolHouse Connection. Tips for Homeless Higher Education Liaisons. https://schoolhouseconnection.org/article/tips-for-homeless-higher-education-liaisons

19 Trellis Strategies & SchoolHouse Connection (February 2026). Removing Barriers, Building Futures: Data-Informed Policies to Support College Students Experiencing Homelessness.

20 McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act, 42 U.S.C. § 11431 et seq.

21 FAFSA Simplification Act, Public Law No: 116-260 (2020).

22 SchoolHouse Connection & Trellis Strategies (2025). New FAFSA Data Shows Increased Access to Financial Aid for Homeless and Foster Youth in 23-24.