A growing number of states and colleges have created student resource navigator roles to help students overcome basic needs insecurity and other barriers to completing their programs. To date, there has been little research on how these navigator roles are structured or implemented. This report presents findings from a national landscape study of state-level navigator supports.

Why This Matters

Today's college students look very different from the traditional image of a recent high school graduate supported by their parents: many must support themselves and their dependents, and more than half experience some form of basic needs insecurity, such as difficulty affording housing or food. These challenges can force them to make trade-offs that undermine their academic progress and well-being.

Public benefits and college- and community-based resources can help students stabilize and stay enrolled, but many face barriers to accessing these supports and have needs that require hands-on problem-solving. Student resource navigators—college-based professionals who connect students to public benefits, college programs, and community services—are one response states and colleges are using to help students overcome these barriers. Understanding how state policy and college practice shape the strength of navigation services can help policymakers, administrators, funders, and advocates design more effective student supports.

What We Found

• Statewide support for college-based resource navigation has grown quickly since 2020. Six states have legislative mandates for college-based navigators: California, Illinois, Minnesota, Oregon, Texas, and Washington. Two states have executive branch initiatives: Georgia and Kentucky. Two states have state-level policy efforts that do not yet involve mandates or significant resources for navigators: Michigan and Pennsylvania.
• Navigator roles vary widely in scope, intensity, and specialization. No state mandates a single service model. Navigators’ day-to-day work ranges from light-touch referrals to intensive case management, application assistance, and population-specific support for groups such as parenting students, students who experienced foster care, and veterans.
• Legislative mandates are valuable even when implementation conditions are uneven. Stakeholders said mandates—even unfunded ones—raise institutional awareness of student basic needs, create accountability, and establish a baseline expectation of support.
• Policy design affects the strength and consistency of services. State policies linked to strong navigation included clear state expectations paired with local flexibility, recurring funding that aligns with college need, structured professional development, peer learning networks, and state-facilitated partnerships with human services agencies.
• College-level practice shapes what students experience. College-level practices linked to strong navigation included college leaders treating basic needs as core to student success, locating services in visible and accessible spaces, and embedding navigators in team-based models. They also included strong community partnerships, braided funding, peer navigators, and technology deployed to extend service reach.
• Evidence of navigator effectiveness is promising but still limited. Stakeholders consistently described navigation as helping students stabilize and stay enrolled, and early quantitative evidence points to positive associations with persistence. However, most states and colleges lack the data infrastructure needed to establish causal evidence.

How We Did It

The study was conducted in two phases:

1. We completed a national landscape scan covering all 50 states and the District of Columbia, using online searches and document review to identify state-level navigator legislation and initiatives.
2. We then completed implementation research in the six states with legislative mandates for college-based navigators, which involved semistructured interviews with 46 college-based staff and 33 key informants, including advocates, legislative staff, and state higher education leaders.