Student Essential Needs Hub

Student Essential Needs Hub Logo.
Icon of a shooting star
About The Hub
Meeting Student Essential Needs is Student Success

The Student Essential Needs Hub serves as a centralized, student-centered initiative for coordinated support at SDSU.

The Hub helps students access: food, emergency aid, clothing, transportation support, household essentials, financial wellness education, and connections to campus and community services.

Three students walking by Wellness Center.
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Impact
More than a Collection of Services

The Hub represents a comprehensive strategy to reduce barriers, preserve dignity and help students remain enrolled and on track to graduate.

It expands SDSU’s ability to intervene earlier, respond more holistically and create pathways for students to remain enrolled, overcome hardship and complete their degree.

Resources
Jack's Cupboard exterior with flowers.
Jack's Cupboard

A free, on-campus food pantry with the goal of alleviating food insecurity among SDSU students by providing food and personal care items to Jackrabbits who need them.
Exterior of Enrollment Services Center who manages emergency aid.
Emergency Aid

The SDSU Emergency Grant provides limited emergency financial support to currently enrolled students who are unable to meet essential expenses due to a temporary or unexpected hardship.
Calculator and personal finance documents.
Financial Wellness

Less financial stress creates more opportunities for success through budgeting, managing aid and loans, financial decision- making and preparing for life after graduation.
Swipe out hunger logo.
Swipe Out Hunger

Swipe Out Hunger is a food insecurity program where students can apply for meal blocks. The program is open all year to currently enrolled SDSU students.
How to Get Involved
The Need
  • According to the 2024 American College Health Association National College Health Assessment, 46.7% of SDSU students reported experiencing food insecurity.
  • The assessment also found that of the 17.2% of SDSU students who reported financial challenges in the past year, 35.1% said those challenges negatively affected their academic performance.
  • Jack's Cupboard, the university’s food pantry, served more than 180 students weekly during the 2025-2026 school year.
  • During the 2025-2026 academic year, the SDSU Emergency Grant assisted 48 students and distributed more than $32,000 in emergency aid.
  • The Jackrabbit Clothing Closet has served 71 students to date with professional clothing needs.
  • This past academic year (2025-2026), Swipe Out Hunger distributed 1,753 hot meals to 220 unique students at SDSU.

The Hub strives to bring these efforts together in a coordinated initiative that increases access, strengthens referrals and expands SDSU’s capacity to support students when they need it most.