Food insecurity has been called an invisible epidemic on today's college campuses, causing many students to underperform academically, suffer stress, and abandon their college dreams altogether.

In response, some institutions are turning to on-campus farms and gardens. Two examples of initiatives—Paul Quinn College in a large city and Piedmont Community College in a rural area—demonstrate how colleges can use creative solutions to promote better access to fresh food and cultivate new skills for their students.

Mohamud Diini had plans to bolt for a warmer climate after graduating from Champlain College in Burlington, Vermont. But one thing pulled him back: a new state program that pays him $2,500 a year toward the $20,000 of student loans he owes as long as he stays and works in the state for at least two years.

That’s exactly what lawmakers behind the student loan repayment effort hope. So do their counterparts in other states with aging populations and worker shortages. Some are dangling incentives of $100,000 to help pay off the student loan debt of college graduates if they agree to stay.

Truly serving students means helping them as individuals, responding with flexible programs to address how life so often happens in educationally inconvenient ways. Doing that means better help for today’s students, who are more likely than ever to be working and caring for families.

But it also means a higher education system less focused on the idea of just counting credentials—as good a success metric as that seems. We need to vigorously champion credentials of value that advance economic opportunity and career mobility, says Lumina Foundation's Jamie Merisotis in his latest column for Forbes.