On the night of Feb. 24, President Donald Trump proclaimed “the golden age of America is upon us” in the first State of the Union address of his second term. But thousands of miles away in Pleasant Hill, Calif., Justinn Rodriguez, 21, listened to the speech from inside his home — a van he rebuilt in order to save on housing costs — and wasn’t buying it.
“I believe in the American Dream,” Rodriguez said. “But I don’t believe it’s worth pursuing for a lot of people. It’s too expensive.”
Priced out of Contra Costa County, where the median rent for a one bedroom apartment sits around $2,000, Rodriguez, a student at Diablo Valley College, said he converted his van into a home for the simple reason that it’s saving him money.
“I didn’t expect to live in a van,” he said, noting how much farther his cash goes when it isn’t all poured into paying monthly rent. In fact, he admitted, “considering how expensive rent is, I feel it has given me an unfair advantage: I’m saving so much money that I can give myself much more luxuries.”
Rodriguez is one of many DVC students mulling affordability in Trump’s second term. Despite his campaign to “make America affordable again,” the ongoing rise of grocery, gas, and astronomically high rent prices have left many students, like Zakiya Barnes, 33, believing things haven’t changed from the president who came before.
In fact, “it’s way worse now,” said Barnes, who works a part-time job that pays minimum wage.
“Prices were going a little up in the Biden Administration, but I didn’t think that things were unlivable. It was expensive, but I had my own apartment back then.”
Now, she added, “it doesn’t feel like anything’s getting better.”
At the center of the problem is the growing cost of food. Although Trump campaigned on lowering grocery bills — which rose a whopping 23.6 percent during rising inflation in the Biden years — consumers are noticing few changes in their receipts at the checkout line.
While economists say it’s normal to expect increases for inflation, prices under the Trump administration have continued to rise despite his promise to “end inflation on day one.” Though the national inflation rate currently sits at 2.4 percent, the cost for key items like meat, poultry, fish and eggs rose by 3.9 percent in the last quarter of 2025.
It’s an increase that consumers like DVC student Katrina Terre, 24, says she feels every day she leaves her home.
“It’s daylight robbery,” said Terre, who works at a local restaurant.
“You go to Target and buy five items and somehow I’ve spent $100! There was a time when I lived on my own, in full survival mode. It was rough,” she recalled.
“Most of my paycheck went to rent, gas and groceries.”
Theoretically, programs such as student aid and food assistance can lend a helping hand to those who need it. However, assistance programs often fall short, leaving DVC students like Nicole Finnegan, 21, struggling to make ends meet.
“I’m not allowed to apply for core school financial aid,” explained Finnegan, who works a part-time minimum wage job.
“All of my money goes directly to DVC’s pockets because they claim my dad makes too much money. But it doesn’t account for everything he pays for. We don’t get his gross income… we get what’s left over,” she said.
Generally, to qualify for aid like food assistance, an individual’s income should not exceed the federal poverty level of $1,330 a month — a rate critics say is too low. Yet for many students, their income often exceeds that, barring them from receiving much-needed benefits.
Since Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” was passed last year, bringing $1.1 trillion in cuts to SNAP benefits, Medicaid and more, it has become even more difficult to receive welfare assistance. At the same time, the bill cut $2.3 trillion in taxes on corporations and the top 1 percent of Americans — revealing blatant inequity that has left many students concerned about their future.
“I’m worried for people who don’t have the same safety net as I do, even if it’s tenuous,” said Barnes.
“I’m frustrated because I feel like we all deserve more than people are getting with [Trump]. It feels like we’re just going to get less, because he’s worried about people who already have wealth.”
For DVC economics professor Eva Shapiro, the country’s growing wealth disparity is hard to ignore.
“It’s almost like we have two different Americas,” Shapiro said. “Over the past year, the stock market has been doing very well. If you’re investing in it and earning returns, that’s great.”
“But if you’re living paycheck to paycheck and don’t have any wealth left over to save, you’re not accessing that.”