Universal free school meals, meal debt and more: how the November election could impact school foodservice

You can’t talk about the future of school meals without considering who is in office.

Ever since the National School Lunch Act was signed into law by President Harry Truman in 1946, The National School Lunch Program has been regulated by the U.S. Government. Over the years, the government has also added additional child nutrition programs into its fold, including the School Breakfast Program and the Summer Food Service Program.

For each of these programs, Congress writes and passes bills dictating how they are to be run. After being signed into law by the president, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), is responsible for implementing the new laws.

“All of this feeds into each other,” says Cathy Schuchart, vice president of government affairs & media relations for the School Nutrition Association (SNA). “Everything is really hinging on this election.”

This November, millions of Americans will head to the polls and who they elect into office will leave a lasting mark on how K-12 cafeterias across the country operate in the years to come.

Universal free school meals

One policy that is gaining traction this election season and could have wide-ranging effects on how school nutrition programs operate in the future is universal free school meals, a policy where all students are provided free breakfast and lunch at school regardless of their family’s income level.

In the presidential race, Democratic nominee Kamala Harris has yet to mention universal free school meals on the campaign trail. Her running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, however, does have a history with providing school meals to all students free of charge. In 2023, he signed a universal free school meals bill into law that provides every public school student in the state free breakfast and lunch daily at school.

Schools across the country were able to get a taste of what universal free meals would look like during COVID-19 when the USDA issued a series of child nutrition waivers, one of which that allowed school nutrition programs to feed all students for free no questions asked. After the waiver’s expiration in June 2022, a handful of states in addition to Minnesota decided to pass laws to continue to offer all students school meals free of charge.

If universal free school meals were implemented nationwide again, it would have a major impact on how school cafeterias operate. The effect of free meals for all students has already been felt in states that have passed universal free school meals bills and they offer a preview of how a national universal free school meals law would potentially impact schools across the country.

Minnesota, for example, has seen a massive increase in school meal participation since providing all students free meals at school. According to state data, over 1 million additional school lunches and breakfast were served each month in the state during fall 2023 compared to fall 2022. Operators in Maine and California have also seen their participation rates go up due to the measure.  

School nutrition professionals located in universal free school meal states have also noticed a change in school culture. During a panel at the SNA’s Annual National Conference held earlier this summer in Boston, Jeanne Lapointe, Food Service Director for RSU 10 in Rumford, Maine, shared that administrators are happy that lunch money is no longer part of the equation and that students are less stressed since the state began offering universal free school meals in 2022.

The concept of universal free school meals has also not been directly addressed by Republican president nominee Donald Trump or his running mate Ohio Senator J.D. Vance, although the 2016 Trump administration was responsible for extending the USDA child nutrition waivers multiple times during the pandemic.

Project 2025, a policy blueprint for the next Republican administration written by conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation, also offers a look at what school meals under a Republic president would look like.

In it, the project’s authors instruct the president to work with Congress to eliminate the Community Eligibility Provision (CEP), a government program which allows schools in high-need areas to feed all students for free. They also suggest that the next Republican president should reject efforts to offer universal free school meals nationwide.

“Federal school meals should be focused on children in need, and any efforts to expand student eligibility for federal school meals to include all K–12 students should be soundly rejected,” the project’s authors state. “Such expansion would allow an inefficient, wasteful program to grow, magnifying the amount of wasted taxpayer resources.”

Trump has denied his involvement with Project 2025 and has tried to distance himself from it, however, at least 140 people who worked in the 2016 Trump Administration have been involved with the project, according to CNN. One of the paper’s authors also claims that Trump has “blessed” the project and is supportive of it, Forbes reports.

Planning the way forward

The upcoming election will also make changes to Congress. Currently, the U.S. House is controlled by the Republican party and the U.S. Senate is controlled by the Democratic party. That could change come November, says Schuchart, especially since more Democratic seats are up for grabs in the Senate this term.

Another question mark that will be decided in the coming months is who will replace Senator Debbie Stabenow when she retires at the end of this year. Stabenow is currently the Chairwoman of the Senate Agriculture Committee which oversees bills related to school nutrition, so her replacement will impact school nutrition policy going forward.

Once the dust settles after the election, the SNA will work on forming relationships with new members of Congress and outlining its priorities for the upcoming year. At the start of 2025, the association will release its 2025 Position Paper which shares the organization’s top policy requests for the year.

“The paper is going to be the roadmap,” says Schuchart.

Things like universal free school meals and raising the meal reimbursement rate were big components of previous position papers and could make a return in the 2025 edition.

Unpaid meal debt, which occurs when students do have outstanding balances in their school meal accounts, is also top of mind for the SNA and has been a challenge for school nutrition professionals since the expiration of the USDA waivers.

“That is something that is on our radar and will continue to be,” says Schuchart.

For now, the association is waiting to see who will be sworn into office come January. In the meantime, Schuchart is encouraging school nutrition professionals to advocate for their programs and share their stories with their representatives. One of the best ways to do that, she says, is by inviting government officials to come spend a day on-site in their kitchens.

“You get a completely different look and feel when you see it in person,” she says.