End of pandemic-era free school lunches could mean more students going hungry, suffering stigma, or falling into debt

"The healthiest meal students typically receive during the day isn’t at their dining room table — it’s in their school cafeteria," Nadra Nittle reports for The 19th, which is named for the constitutional amendment that guaranteed women the right to vote and calls itself "an independent, nonprofit newsroom reporting at the intersection of gender, politics and policy."

Nittle writes, "That finding from Tufts University researchers is just one reason child nutrition experts have urged Congress to pass legislation that would enable schools nationwide to provide free meals for all students. Pandemic-era waivers that made universal free school lunch a reality the past two years have expired, and this fall, students will once again have to qualify for free, reduced or full-priced meals based on need."

Child-nutrition experts predict more kids will go hungry this fall, especially considering the recent increase in food insecurity in households with children, the first such rise since 2011. "There are going to be many struggling families next fall who don’t apply for meal programs or who don’t qualify for benefits," Lori Adkins, president of the nonprofit School Nutrition Association, told Nittle. "The ones that do qualify for benefits, our programs will continue to provide that safety net, but for those that are on the cusp, I’m worried about them. Sometimes it is that single-parent household with children, and they have limited resources, and sometimes they can fall through that safety net."

The end of pandemic-era free school meals also likely heralds the return of school meal debt, Kalyn Belsha reports for Chalkbeat, an education-coverage nonprofit: "That’s because families who qualify for free meals may not realize they have to fill out paperwork again, and then struggle to pay the fees. Other students who ate for free during the pandemic might rack up debt before realizing their families don’t meet the low income thresholds."

Such debt can have big consequences for students, who can be shamed for having to eat cold sandwiches or even denied the opportunity to participate in extracurricular activities. Some school districts have even sent families to debt collectors, Belsha reports.