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Contact: Diane Pratt-Heavner
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media@schoolnutrition.org
2025 Position Paper calls for increased support
2025-01-14
ARLINGTON, VA – A new School Nutrition Association (SNA) survey report reveals persistently high costs, rising unpaid school meal debt, and insufficient federal funding threaten the sustainability of school meal programs and efforts to successfully implement forthcoming nutrition standards. To preserve programs vital to the health and future of millions of America’s children, SNA’s 2025 Position Paper urges Congress to increase school meal reimbursement rates, expand access to healthy school meals for all students and address meal debt.
“School meals contribute to students’ academic achievement, foster healthy eating habits and support America’s working families,” said SNA President Shannon Gleave, RDN, SNS. “But for less than the average price of a latte, school nutrition professionals are expected to prepare and serve a nutritionally balanced lunch, complete with fruits, vegetables, lean protein and milk. Underfunded school meal programs need additional support from Congress to maintain meal quality, meet additional nutrition standards and ensure access for students in need.”
SNA’s SY 2024/25 School Nutrition Trends Report, an analysis of survey responses from 1,390 school meal program directors nationwide, exposes long-term challenges for the National School Lunch and Breakfast Programs (NSLP/SBP). Notably, 92.1% of survey respondents are concerned about their program’s financial sustainability three years from now.
High costs continue to plague the programs, with survey respondents citing food costs (97.9%), labor costs (94.9%) and equipment costs (91.4%) as their top program challenges. School meal programs have always operated on tight budgets, but financial pressures have intensified:
- Only 20.5% reported the federal reimbursement rate is sufficient to cover the cost of producing a lunch, a steep drop since SNA’s 2018 survey when more than half (52.6%) of directors cited the lunch rate as sufficient.
- Currently, schools only receive about $4.50 in reimbursements for each free lunch they serve.
Staff shortages and procurement issues (e.g. long lead times, substitutions, late deliveries, insufficient bid responses) are still problematic for most school nutrition programs, cited as challenges by 88.7% and 86.8% of respondents respectively. These issues hinder efforts to meet new limits on added sugar and sodium, which also require additional staff, training and equipment to expand scratch cooking.
- When asked about resources needed to comply with these limits, 96.8% of directors indicated their programs require increased funding, with 69.5% citing an “extreme need” for more funds.
SNA’s 2025 Position Paper urges Congress to increase federal reimbursement rates by 40 cents per lunch and 15 cents per breakfast to help schools cover the full cost of serving healthy meals.
School meal programs that must charge families for school meals face additional concerns. Among programs that do not offer free meals to all students through the Community Eligibility Provision (CEP) or a state or local initiative:
- 73.5% indicated students are going hungry or choosing not to eat
- 89.3% cited challenges with families in need not receiving free or reduced-price meals
- 96.8% reported challenges with unpaid school meal charges/debt, with over two-thirds citing meal debt as a “significant challenge.”
Free and reduced-price meal applications only collect family income data and do not account for expenses. Given rising costs, many families whose income exceeds the threshold for free and reduced-price meals still struggle to afford school meals. Alarmingly, the amount of meal 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 102.9% higher than the median debt reported at the end of SY 2017-18.
USDA regulations require school nutrition professionals 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 protect CEP, expand access to healthy school meals for all students and address unpaid school meal debt.
In March, school nutrition professionals from across the country will meet with their Members of Congress to discuss SNA’s 2025 Position Paper, as part of the 53rd annual Legislative Action Conference (LAC).
SNA’s SY 2024/25 School Nutrition Trends Report also includes data on school meal prices, staff vacancy rates, menu trends and concerns about forthcoming regulatory requirements.
About School Nutrition Association:
The School Nutrition Association (SNA) is a national, non-profit professional organization representing 50,000 school nutrition professionals across the country. Founded in 1946, SNA and its members are dedicated to making healthy school meals and nutrition education available to all students. For more information on school meals, visit http://www.SchoolNutrition.org/SchoolMeals.
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