No one wants a child to go hungry or feel shame – especially those working in school cafeterias. In schools that must charge for meals, the nutrition team works throughout the year to enroll income-eligible families in the free and reduced-price school meal program. However, many families that do not qualify for meal benefits still struggle to afford the cost of school meals.
In School Year 2024/25, a family of four earning more than $40,560 will not qualify for free meal benefits; those earning even a dollar above $57,720 are ineligible for any meal assistance and must pay full price for school meals. Federal meal applications only collect income data and do not allow for exceptions, so families saddled with high health care costs, rent increases or emergency expenses often fail to qualify for assistance.
A recent SNA survey found the median price of a high school breakfast is $2 and lunch is $3.20. While $5.20 is a great value for two nutritionally balanced meals, paying $10-15 a day for two or three children can be a substantial amount for a family trying to make ends meet.
When families cannot pay, school meal debt rapidly accumulates, becoming a significant burden on family and school district budgets. In SNA’s survey, 96.8% of districts that must charge for meals reported challenges with unpaid meal debt, with over two-thirds citing meal debt as a “significant challenge.” Alarmingly, the amount of debt is climbing:
- The median reported district debt as of November 2024 was $6,900, which is 25.6% higher than the year prior and 9% higher than the median debt reported at the end of School Year 2017-18.
USDA regulations require meal programs to work to collect meal debt from families. When families do not pay, schools must pay off the debt using non-federal funds. As a result, unpaid debt can cut into investments in the quality of school meals and force cash-strapped school districts to divert education funds to cover meal program losses.
SNA’s 2025 Position Paper urges Congress to address unpaid school meal debt.