A federal bill is reshaping who qualifies for free school meals, putting high-need students at risk and forcing schools to absorb new administrative and financial burdens as they fight to keep kids fed.
Study: From Policy to Plate: Implications of 2025 U.S. Federal Policy Changes on School Meals. Image credit: Monkey Business Images/Shutterstock.com
In a recent perspective in Nutrients, nutrition experts at Duke University highlighted their concerns about the impact of recent federal policy changes on the access of low-income children to school meals.
They noted that restricting access to Medicaid and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits will likely reduce the number of children who can receive nutritious school meals at low or no cost, compromising their nutrition and well-being.
Recent improvements in school meals
Federal school meal programs remain essential sources of daily nutrition for millions of U.S. children, particularly those from low-income households. Many students receive up to half of their daily calories through these programs, making them a key public health intervention.
Over the past decade, major reforms have significantly improved the nutritional quality of meals by increasing the consumption of fruits, vegetables, and whole grains, while lowering sodium and saturated fat levels. Evaluations consistently show that policy meals are markedly healthier, with Healthy Eating Index gains of more than 40 % for both lunches and breakfasts.
Participation patterns also suggest that school meals effectively reach vulnerable groups. Students from food-insecure households, rural communities, and historically marginalized racial/ethnic groups tend to participate at the highest rates.
Furthermore, higher nutritional standards appear to encourage participation, as schools offering healthier meals experience a greater uptake among students. School meals now provide equitable nutritional quality across schools regardless of socioeconomic status or racial and ethnic composition, illustrating how federal policy can narrow long-standing dietary inequities.
Despite these advances, persistent gaps remain. Added sugar levels in school meals have long exceeded dietary recommendations, particularly in breakfasts, where flavored milk and sweetened cereals significantly contribute to sugar intake. As a result, new federal added-sugar limits, which will roll out between 2027 and 2028, will further tighten nutritional standards.
Complementary state-level efforts are also emerging, reflecting growing concerns about their links with poor cardiometabolic and mental health outcomes. Several states have also introduced or passed policies restricting dyes, additives, or ultra-processed foods in schools, with California becoming the first state to define and begin regulating ultra-processed foods. These combined actions demonstrate a broad commitment to improving children’s diets through both federal and state policy pathways.
New federal policy actions
Against this backdrop of nutritional progress, new policy developments in 2025 pose significant challenges to maintaining and expanding access to school meals. Most notable is the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBB), which changes eligibility rules for SNAP and Medicaid.
Direct certification eliminates the need for families to submit applications, thereby reducing bureaucratic hurdles and ensuring that more eligible children receive meals. The OBB restricts SNAP eligibility by tightening work requirement exemptions for parents, eliminating exemptions for vulnerable groups (including veterans and people experiencing homelessness), and excluding many noncitizens.
High-school students are especially vulnerable because work requirement exemptions now only apply to parents of children aged 14 or younger; consequently, many older students are likely to lose SNAP benefits and, as a result, their automatic qualification for free school meals. The legislation also raises state administrative costs, which may limit state participation in SNAP altogether.
Similarly, Medicaid enrolment is expected to decline due to new work requirements, more frequent income and eligibility checks, and shortened six-month recertification windows. Because many households experience income irregularities, especially in low-wage or seasonal jobs, these rules increase the likelihood of losing coverage, which directly affects school meal eligibility.
Consequences for nutritional equity
Reduced direct certification will have ripple effects throughout the school nutrition system. Schools and districts will face a surge in paper applications for free and reduced-price meals, creating backlogs, delays, and administrative strain.
Any lag in processing can result in children missing meals, particularly those from newly ineligible groups such as refugee families and children with humanitarian immigration status. The paper specifically notes that Cuban and Haitian children, as well as children entering the U.S. under asylum or urgent humanitarian protections, are at heightened risk of losing eligibility. These disruptions threaten to widen existing disparities in food security and diet quality.
Financial consequences are also substantial. School meal programs operate on tight margins, with reimbursement rates often insufficient to cover rising costs for staff, food, equipment, and facilities.
Reduced participation translates directly into lost revenue, making it harder for schools to maintain high nutrition standards or invest in scratch cooking and the preparation of fresh food. Cuts to programs such as the Local Food for Schools Cooperative Agreement further strain budgets and reduce opportunities to serve fresh, minimally processed foods. These cuts also undermine local food systems and rural economies by disrupting stable purchasing contracts with farmers and small producers.
One of the most concerning impacts relates to the Community Eligibility Provision, which allows high-poverty schools to serve free meals to all students. If fewer students qualify for SNAP and Medicaid, many schools may lose eligibility or receive lower reimbursement rates, which could discourage participation entirely.
Broader implications and future recommendations
These policy changes threaten one of the most effective child nutrition programs in the United States and risk undoing decades of progress in nutritional quality, equitable access, and the use of school meals to combat food insecurity.
The authors argue that strong advocacy and comprehensive research are urgently needed. Budget cuts to federal agencies jeopardize national surveillance efforts that track the outcomes of school meal programs. Without such monitoring, it becomes increasingly difficult to assess the real-world effects of recent policies, identify inequities, and inform future reforms.
Protecting and strengthening school meal programs is essential to reducing child hunger, safeguarding diet-related health, and supporting academic success nationwide.
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