By Marlene B. Schwartz and Juliana Cohen
Should all U.S. public school students be able to eat breakfast and lunch at no cost, regardless of their family’s income? The federal government temporarily made that possible during the COVID-19 pandemic. Since then, some states have taken it upon themselves to make it happen on a permanent basis. The Conversation U.S. asked Marlene B. Schwartz and Juliana Cohen, two scholars of school nutrition, to explain why this issue has become more prominent and what they expect the next presidential administration to do about it.
Alejandra Villa Loarca/Newsday RM via Getty Images
How many K-12 students get free meals at school?
The National School Lunch Program provides nutritious meals for over 28 million students each day. Students living in low-income households can receive meals for free or at a reduced price. However, there can be barriers to participating in school meals for families, including the stigma associated with receiving free meals or challenges completing school meal applications. Many families are also not eligible for free or reduced-price meals but may be struggling financially. Overall, this can lead to school meal debt if a child eats breakfast or lunch at school but the family cannot afford the cost.
In March 2020, Congress realized that more students might face food insecurity – not having consistent access to enough nutritious food – due to school closures in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. So lawmakers temporarily authorized the U.S. Department of Agriculture to provide school meals at no cost for all students nationwide and to give schools more flexibility in terms of how they could distribute food to families with children.
This unexpected natural experiment illustrated the benefits of providing healthy meals for all children. Eight states – California, Colorado, New Mexico, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota and Vermont – have chosen to provide free meals for all public school students since the USDA stopped funding universal free school meals after the 2021-22 school year.
There is evidence that families with children living in states that provide free meals across the board have lower rates of food insufficiency, another way to measure the share of people who can’t get enough food on the table.
Some states have instead opted to expand access to free meals without making them universal, including Connecticut, Arizona, Louisiana and Texas. They are providing free meals to students who were previously eligible for reduced-price meals. New Jersey has increased the number of students with access to free meals at its public schools by 60,000.
At the federal level, the USDA expanded access to the Community Eligibility Provision in the fall of 2023. This enables individual schools or entire school districts with large numbers of low-income students to provide free meals to all students. This policy was originally implemented as part of the Obama administration’s Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010. The number of schools where all kids get free meals is rising. Nearly 20 million U.S. children attended a public or charter school participating in the Community Eligibility Provision during the 2022-23 school year, up 22.5% from the prior school year.
Due to all the steps taken to increase access to free meals, about two-thirds of public and charter school students received school meals for free during the 2023-24 school year.
What does the latest research say about universal free school meals?
A large body of research has found that universal free school meals benefit students.
When the meals served at school are free for everybody, studies have found that more students eat them, including students who were already eligible for free school meals.
This could happen because providing free meals to all children may reduce the stigma of eating school meals.
A literature review we conducted with several colleagues found that providing lunch at no cost for all students was associated with multiple positive outcomes: better nutrition, lower food insecurity rates, higher attendance and higher academic achievement.
The nutrition finding makes sense in light of research documenting that school meals are usually healthier than what children eat at home and elsewhere. We are working on a new study that assesses whether the families of students at schools with universal free meals are less likely to experience food insecurity because they can spend more money on food eaten at home.
Free meals also mean students run no risk of incurring unpaid school meal debt. This debt can take a toll on kids, their families and even their schools, which often have to use other operational funds to cover this debt.
In states without universal free school meal policies, unpaid school meal debt continues to climb. In the fall of 2023, this debt ranged from as little as US$10 up to $1 million per school district. The median amount was about $5,500 – more than double the debt owed a decade earlier.
Why did Walz make this a priority in Minnesota?
In March 2023, Gov. Tim Walz signed a measure into law making all meals served at the state’s public and charter schools free. It also eliminated all preexisting school meal debt.
As a former teacher, Walz recognized the benefits of free meals. “It makes a huge difference in the lives of those families and the savings they see,” he said in January 2024. “It makes a huge difference in the moment for those students, and we know in the long run it’ll make a difference in achievement and the well-being of those students.”
What might happen in a Harris-Walz administration?
Universal free school meals has been a priority for Walz in Minnesota, and as such, we are optimistic that a Harris-Walz administration would recognize the potential benefits of making school meals available at no cost for all children in the United States. Another option would be to boost federal funding to enable more schools to participate in the Community Eligibility Provision.
What would you expect to see in a second Trump administration?
Donald Trump’s administration made multiple attempts to weaken the nutritional quality of school meals despite evidence supporting their benefits for students. For example, they rolled back expectations that kids would be served more whole grains and stalled efforts to decrease sodium levels.
Project 2025, a package of policy proposals authored by people closely tied to Trump’s 2024 presidential bid – but that the campaign has sought to disavow – calls for cuts in federal spending that helps fund universal free school meal programs.
It also recommends eliminating the Community Eligibility Provision, a step that many Republican lawmakers support. We would expect a second Trump administration to weaken the positive impacts of school meal programs.
Marlene B. Schwartz is Professor of Human Development and Family Sciences at the University of Connecticut. Juliana Cohen is Professor of Nutrition and Public Health at Merrimack College.
The Conversation arose out of deep-seated concerns for the fading quality of our public discourse and recognition of the vital role that academic experts could play in the public arena. Information has always been essential to democracy. It’s a societal good, like clean water. But many now find it difficult to put their trust in the media and experts who have spent years researching a topic. Instead, they listen to those who have the loudest voices. Those uninformed views are amplified by social media networks that reward those who spark outrage instead of insight or thoughtful discussion. The Conversation seeks to be part of the solution to this problem, to raise up the voices of true experts and to make their knowledge available to everyone. The Conversation publishes nightly at 9 p.m. on FlaglerLive.
jackson says
“Aside from Minnesota, the other states that have dramatically expanded free school meals are Vermont, Colorado, Maine, California and New Mexico.”
Would help explain the states that have a better education ranking in blue states, NM being the exception listed.
Not all families have enough money to feed themselves well, all else being equal.
Then again, conservatives care more about the unborn than children after their born.
Sherry says
As reported by the Associated Press: With just over a week before Election Day, trump and other speakers labeled Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage,” called Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris “the devil,” and said the woman vying to become the first woman and Black woman president had begun her career as a prostitute.
And, this horrific vitriol is being spewed by the trump party. This is really the people you want to lead our nation? Just how low and disgusting is OK with you, maga members?
Proud MAGA voter says
Made sure I got to early voting so I could proudly cast my vote for President Donald J. Trump! Make America Great Again!
Sherry says
Do you really want a crazy man with a possible worm in his brain to decide what medicines and food may be available to you?
Former President Trump said Sunday that he would let Robert F. Kennedy Jr. “go wild” in dealing with issues related to food, medicine and health in a potential second administration.
“I’m going to let him go wild on health. I’m going to let him go wild on the food. I’m going to let him go wild on the medicines,” Trump told supporters at Madison Square Garden.
“Think about that BEFORE you Vote!
Welcome RFK, Jr. says
I just listened to an hour long podcast where RFK explained his fight against obesity, diabetes and other ailments attributed to the millions of nasty chemicals contained in processed foods, which are not allowed in other countries, like Canada for instance. A box of fruit loops cereal is more expensive for General Mills to manufacture for the Canadian market, because it has to use more grains and less chemicals. Mc Donalds French fries contain 17 ingredients. In England, McDonald’s fries are comprised of potatoes, salt and beef tallow (Cooking oil McDonald’s previously used in US). He is against all the big Pharma, big agriculture and all these bloated governmental agencies controlled buy their lobbyists. I am all for this guy breaking away from the left and partnering up with the winning team!
Laurel says
Feed the kids, for crying out loud! Walz feeding children for better health, better school attendance and better learning comprehension. Vance admits to lying about the Haitians, from “Hatia,” (my God, he could be President some day, and he is severely lacking in simple geographical knowledge) is eating the local’s pets, in the state he represents. Those millionaires and billionaires do need their tax cuts, which they will never actually feel. What to do, what to do?
If you vote for Trump/Vance, this is on you.
JimboXYZ says
Food insecurity has grown since Covid. That is a function of Bidenomics, again Biden-Harris that the Left won’t own. Imagine that, such great economic milestones & records and the poor & middle class were left further behind. Harris-Walz want what could potentially be 4-8 years more ? Mouse over the graph, food insecurity peaked under Obama-Biden in the last 23 years that the graph presents. Lowest points under Bush & Trump. Where it spiked 2007-2008 as Bush bailout economy (3.5% increase, 14.6-11.1) finally unraveled. On nearly a similar spike was Bidenomics in 2021-2023 (3.3% increase, 13.5-10.2). And this track record makes Biden a top 15 for US POTUS ? How & on what planet ? Imagine that, a record profit economy & nothing got better with a recipient economy ? The graphs aren’t going to fabricate Biden-Harris as Top 15 POTUS in US History, the data points for food insecurity & unaffordable housing, energy inflations. How any 2024 election poll indicates Trump vs Harris is a close race is just astonishing for spin & dupe Biden-Harris administration for politics.
Ray W, says
Hello JimboXYZ.
Something told me that written into the nearly $6 trillion of unfunded stimulus money signed into law by both presidents during the pandemic were programs providing additional funding to reduce food insecurity. But such funds commonly have sunset dates or are one-time band aids on a bigger issue.
The graph set out in the article shows a significant rise in food insecurity starting with the Great Recession. Two years after the end of the Great Recession’s worst impacts on the economy, the level of food insecurity began steadily dropping through the last five years of the Biden administration and on through the Trump years, hitting a low in 2021, not 2020, which was one year after some of the programs took effect. But the graph shows a year over year average effect, not the granular and instant effects of the pandemic on overall food insecurity in the early weeks of the pandemic.
I recall in grade school lining up in the cafeteria before class time started and paying for my lunch tickets for the week. My recollection was that my lunch cost a quarter per day. I knew kids who didn’t have to pay for their tickets. Sixty years of subsidized school lunches and we still haven’t decided whether we want any of our nation’s children to starve.
Here’s a thought. Why don’t you look it up like I did so that you will know what you are talking about? You can start by looking for a July 1, 2021, White House paper on the history of certain food security programs dating back to the Great Recession. Interesting read. From that paper, I found a July 2019 Department of Agriculture study finding that stimulus spending on food during the Great Recession not only reduced levels of food insecurity, but it also boosted the economy. A more recent assessment by the DoAg found up to a $2 increase in economic benefits for every dollar spent on food aid.
Trump did the right thing by signing into law the first of several food security programs in March 2020. Others were signed into law by both Trump and Biden. But even today, though we are far better off economically than we were four years ago, we still struggle to find the political will to provide food security to the most vulnerable among us.
Sherry says
How much lower and filthy/disgusting will you go magas?
Elon Musk’s America PAC shared a video calling Kamala Harris “the c-word” on X, the social media platform also owned by the tech billionaire.
The narrator in the 34-second ad repeatedly calls Harris a “c-word” and says other elected officials whose photos are displayed in the ad — Democrats President Joe Biden, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) — are all “c-words.”
Sticks and stones says
According to Woke liberal democrats, as a single father struggling to keep the pantry full of groceries I am garbage? A deplorable? (How far did that comment boost Hillary? It sent her back up into her bottle of Gin). My preferred Presidential candidate is labeled “Racist”. “Facish” and “Hitler”?
That’s what Kamal’s campaign has been reduced to. They have no idea on policy, so lets inform our Media conglomerates to band together and these are the talking points we order you to slander republicans with this week.
Adolf says
Yeah, wouldn’t the goal be to uplift everyone so they could pay for their own kid(s) food? When did it become a virtue to have more people on gov’t free meals? I understand being a Dem is a mental illness; I am trying my best to rationalize the point of this article.