Many college students, especially students from low-income backgrounds, face significant structural barriers that make it challenging to persist and complete a degree or certificate. These barriers include substantial financial challenges. Student financial aid at the federal and state levels has not kept up with rising college costs, resulting in sizable and growing gaps between what students from low-income backgrounds are asked to pay and the resources available to them through earnings and personal savings, grants and scholarships, and other sources. One solution to student financial hardship is to provide students from low-income backgrounds access to means-tested public benefits while in school. Public benefits can help these students make ends meet, improving both quality of life and their ability to focus on academics. This paper first outlines several federally and state-funded public benefits, including those that try to mitigate food insecurity, childcare costs, housing insecurity, healthcare costs, and financial insecurity. The paper then examines the frequency with which students access public benefits, whether, in fact, public benefits support college going and completion, and the costs associated with public benefits. The paper concludes with several recommendations for how institutions can help make public benefits more accessible to students.