I do think giving scholarships to very poor students and expecting they can find a place to live when dorms and cafeterias are suddenly closed shows a lack of thought of the students by those in charge in colleges. My husband went to a school like Amherst on full scholarship, something for which he will always be very grateful. He has no complaints about anything and only gratitude, but I learned from him that during school breaks he was expected to leave campus. He thankfully had other students and professors who offered to house him over those breaks. Without that, he would have been homeless. He didn’t have access to work anywhere but on campus. He got jobs on campus some summers but the cafeteria was closed. I asked him how he got food at those times and he and other students on campus learned to find out where there were campus events and wait until they ended and then go collect what food they could find. He didn’t have a car. There wasn’t a bus running to down that was miles away. No Uber Eats. He would sometimes be hungry while working on campus. He would store bananas in case food ran out.
If a college really wants these students, I think they should at least give some thought to how these students will do basic things like eat food in the summer when they have a summer job, or live when the campus closes for breaks. Otherwise it seems these students are there more for decoration.
But my husband would say he was the luckiest guy and will always love the school. As I said, he has no complaints.