Universal Free School Meals
Page last updated on July 1, 2026
Funder: Agriculture, Food, and Nutrition Evidence Center
Status: Complete
Contract Start: N/A
Project Description: Universal free school meals (UFSM) programs offer all students within a school, district, state, or nation access to free meals while at school. Funding for UFSM can come from local, state, or federal resources, such as the Community Eligibility Provision (CEP) in the U.S., which provides federal reimbursement for qualifying schools to serve free meals to all students. In the 2023-2024 school year, nine states had UFSM policies, relying on a combination of funding sources. The Evidence Center conducted a systematic review examining the association between UFSM and various outcomes. This review provides an assessment of the evidence related to UFSM with the potential to inform decision-makers.
Research Question: What is the association between universal free school meals and school and student outcomes in U.S. schools?
Approach: Systematic Review
Publication: Universal Free School Meals and School and Student Outcomes: A Systematic Review. DOI: 10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2024.24082
Background:
- This systematic review synthesizes evidence from longitudinal studies in peer-reviewed literature and government reports on the associations between UFSM in the United States and school- and student-level outcomes, including meal participation rates, attendance, dietary intake, diet quality, anthropometrics, economic impacts, disciplinary actions, food waste, stigma, and shaming.
Key Findings:
- Six studies comprising more than 11,000 schools across six states (California, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Texas, and Wisconsin) met the inclusion criteria.
- Implementation of UFSM was associated with increased lunch (3 studies) and breakfast (1 study) participation, no change or modest improvements to attendance (2 studies), and decreased obesity prevalence (1 study) and suspensions (1 study). The association with lunch participation had a moderate certainty of evidence, while the other associations had low or very low certainty of evidence.
- Studies did not report several outcomes, such as dietary intake and quality, food waste, stigma, shaming, household level food insecurity, and the economic impact for schools.
Addressing Research Gaps:
- Additional high-quality longitudinal research on the impact of UFSMs across school and student outcomes would potentially increase the number of conclusions that could be drawn and strengthen the certainty of evidence for future systematic reviews on this topic.
- Data from additional states could be systematically collected and made accessible to researchers to evaluate the effectiveness of UFSM programs.
- Analyses addressing nonrandom selection bias, such as difference-in-difference approaches, could be applied to reduce the risk of bias and strengthen findings.
Citation:
Spill MK, Trivedi R, Thoerig RC, Balalian AA, Schwartz MB, Gundersen C, Odoms-Young A, Racine EF, Foster MJ, Davis JS, MacFarlane AJ. Universal Free School Meals and School and Student Outcomes: A Systematic Review. JAMA Netw Open. 2024 Aug 1;7(8):e2424082. doi: 10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2024.24082. PMID: 39120904; PMCID: PMC11316229.
