College students are constantly stressed at the grocery check-out line, and it is starting to affect their mental health.

According to AP News, 53% of adults consider groceries to be a major stressor. I can believe this because, in my personal experience, my grocery bill is rather expensive, and it can get pricey. While in Italy, my two-week grocery bill is barely $67. Why is this? According to CBS News, American grocery prices have been affected by supply chain issues, the war in Ukraine, labor costs and energy costs.

In The Bureau of Labor Statistics index, groceries have gone up 3.2% over the previous 12 months. That’s insane, and college students are affected by this. It is putting college students into difficult financial situations, causing them to skip meals and buy less healthy food. It is causing poor academic performance, and the image of a “broke college student” is a reality now. Colleges are unprepared to take on a food-mageddon of low-income college students.

According to Tiffany Jones, a custodian supervisor at UT Martin, prices have gotten so bad that they added a hygiene pantry for students because basic necessities are so expensive. She says she has never seen anything like it. She also says that staff are feeling the pressure, and that most people can’t afford to retire at retirement age due to inflation.

Jones also stated that she used to work at Walmart, and she noticed the price of ramen had gone up for the first time in years. America has not adjusted FAFSA for inflation to cope with students spending at least $200 for groceries every two weeks, and part-time jobs and campus jobs are not cutting it for students anymore.

According to Open Campus, in a national survey from the fall of 2020, three in five college students did not have enough to eat, and food pantries were not enough.

You know it’s bad when students are missing meals. According to Feeding America, missing meals can have lasting physical and mental effects on students. Their source, The Journalist’s Resource, says that students who are facing hunger report their overall health as “poor.” With rising tuition costs and meal plans that cost about $4,000 a year, food isn’t always available.

Most colleges don’t talk about students starving on campus because they don’t know it’s happening. We are only a number in their system. They try to say that we’re a community, which is true to a certain extent when it comes to professors and student friendships. But when it comes to administrative prowess, we don’t matter — and students should matter because we are putting money in their wallets. If we don’t do something about this soon, student excellence may be a thing of the past, and that would be very unfortunate for all of us.