Project Cahir Survey

2019 Project Cahir Survey

Administered in Spring 2019, the Project Cahir Survey aimed to gather feedback from students to better understand the climate and needs of Penn State students as well as inform decisions in developing and providing resources/services to help our Penn State community on Penn State’s University Park campus.

Results from the 2019 Project Cahir Survey revealed:

• Food and Housing Insecurity
  • Overall, 21.8% “strongly disagree” or “somewhat disagree” that it is easy for them to buy fresh fruits and vegetables. Also, 37.6% indicated that fresh fruits and vegetables are not affordable for them. 
  • The top three current living situations among students were off-campus housing (living with roommates) (48.0%), off-campus housing (individual lease) (23.5%), and on-campus residence hall (22.4%). 
• Barriers and impact of food insecurity on education/lifestyle
  • Overall, when asked about circumstances that made it difficult for students to get the food that they wanted, the top three barriers were lack of time to prepare food (80.9%), lack of time to shop for food (71.2%), and cost of food (50.9%). 
  • While the majority of students had access to food in the last month, 21.9% “sometimes” or “often” could not afford to eat balanced meals.
  • 15.5% had difficulty concentrating on their studies because of hunger and not enough money for food, and 24.4% said that they had to cut the size of their meals or skip meals because there wasn’t enough money for food.
• Information/Resources at Penn State
  • In general, at least 80.0% of students indicated that they “have not received” or “have not received but would like to receive” various information from Penn State regarding services/programs.

For more information, please visit the PULSE Archive Page to view or download the Project Cahir PULSE Survey.