History Main / StarvingStudent

* Foul Bachelor Frog is a [[MemeticMutation meme]] (of the advice dog variety) which shows a frog making comments on the stereotypical college student's life. Part of the memes are about this trope, while others are about WackyFratboyHijinx, ExperimentedInCollege, and ADateWithRosiePalms.
** Actually, Foul Bachelor Frog is more often just lazy. Several of the memes are about how he has lots of food in the fridge, but chooses to starve because none of it can be prepared in less than two minutes. At other times, he is rich enough to order take-away all the time because he doesn't have any clean plates (and doesn't want to do the dishes) and intends to use the tissues included with the take-away food as an alternative to plates. Or buy [=McDonald=]'s because the bag can be used as a waste bag.

* Foul Bachelor Frog is a [[MemeticMutation meme]] (of the advice dog variety) which shows a frog making comments on the stereotypical college student's life. Part of the memes are about this trope, while others are about WackyFratboyHijinx and ExperimentedInCollege.

** Actually, Foul Bachelor Frog is more often just lazy. Several of the memes are about how he has lots of food in the fridge, but chooses to starve because none of it can be prepared in less than two minutes. At other times, he is rich enough to order take-away all the time because he doesn't have any clean plates (and doesn't want to do the dishes) and intends to use the tissues included with the take-away food as an alternative to plates. Or buy McDonald's because the bag can be used as a waste bag.

** Actually, Foul Bachelor Frog is more often just lazy. Several of the memes is about how he has lots of food in the fridge, but chooses to starve because none of it can be prepared in less than two minutes. At other times, he is rich enough to order take-away all the time because he doesn't have any clean plates (and doesn't want to do the dishes) and intends to use the tissues included to the take-away food as an alternative to plates. Or buy McDonalds because the bag can be used as a waste bag.

This trope is often TruthInTelevision, as college loans are very expensive (growing moreso in some places) and keep many students in debt for years. This results in years of struggling to get by just to pay off their education, which has a higher priority than buying food. In fiction it is generally played for comedy, especially when the character is also a BigEater, but it can be milked for drama at the drop of a hat.

* Marius from ''LesMiserables'' becomes this after he's kicked out by his grandfather. Many of the other students help him out at various points, especially Courfeyrac who shares a flat with him for a while.

* The New England Journal of Medicine described, in the late 1990s, several cases of scurvy (Vitamin C deficiency) seen in students who had chosen a severely restricted diet - consisted almost entirely of instant noodles - because of cost. Although these diets lack many necessary nutrients, Vit C deficiency would be the first to become obvious due to the human body's inability to store or manufacture the substance. Less drastically, low-grade anaemia (iron deficiency) is epidemic among students (especially females) due to the combined factors of cost and culture: the best source of iron is red meat which is expensive, often difficult to source good quality, and shunned by vegetarians as well as those worried about hormones, BSE, saturated fats etc. The consumption of red meat (and offal) has dropped dramatically in the USA and Western Europe since the 1970s, with consequent public health effects. Likewise, young people's consumption of milk has dropped dramatically too, leading to fears of calcium deficiency and osteoporosis amongst teenage girls - which is the reason behind the high profile Got Milk? ads.

Between tuition and textbooks, rent payments and transit fares, there's only so much money that a poor university student living on bank loans and [[ScholarshipStudent scholarships]] is able to put towards food. The StarvingStudent is a staple of higher education settings, where even those lucky enough to have financial support from their parents will still be thinking of money in values of mac and cheese boxes or [[RamenAsDehydratedNoodles instant noodles]]. The starving student will often have a rigid budget and spend their entire academic career just scraping by for necessities like clothing and food (but not, of course, for alcohol).

* Basically the entire cast of ''PhD''.

* OlderThanPrint: The Clerk of Oxford (essentially a philosophy student) from ''TheCanterburyTales'' is an example.

This trope is often TruthInTelevision, as college loans are very expensive (growing moreso) and keep many students in debt for years. This results in years of struggling to get by just to pay off their education, which has a higher priority than buying food. In fiction it is generally played for comedy, especially when the character is also a BigEater, but it can be milked for drama at the drop of a hat.

This trope is often TruthInTelevision, as college loans are very expensive and keep many students in debt for years. This results in years of struggling to get by just to pay off their education, which has a higher priority than buying food. In fiction it is generally played for comedy, especially when the character is also a BigEater, but it can be milked for drama at the drop of a hat.

This trope is often TruthInTelevision, as college loans are very expensive and keep many students in debt for years. This results in years of struggling to get by just to pay off their education, which has a higher priority than buying food. Even when the tuition isn't a problem, due to scholarship or simply a free education (yep, it exists), there's always need to support oneself. Most students are separated from their families and receive only a limited support from them, and studies, fun, and part-time work usually don't mix very well — something has to suffer, and for MANY it's their income. In fiction it is generally played for comedy, especially when the character is also a BigEater, but it can be milked for drama at the drop of a hat.

This trope is often TruthInTelevision, as college loans are very expensive and keep many students in debt for years. This results in years of struggling to get by just to pay off their education, which has a higher priority than buying food. In fiction it is generally played for comedy, especially when the character is also a BigEater, but it can be milked for drama at the drop of a hat.

* The Clerk of Oxford (essentially a philosophy student) from ''TheCanterburyTales'' is an example, making this OlderThanPrint.

[[AC:{{Folklore}}]]

* In Fruits Basket, Tohru Honda was this in the first episode, while she was living in a tent.

* While they aren't students anymore, one episode of ''{{Scrubs}}'' notes that JD, Turk and the other interns (apart from Elliot, who's parents pay for everything) have to steal hospital supplies to make ends meet.