The National School Lunch Program (NSLP) is a federally funded meal program that provides low-cost or free lunches to children at public schools, nonprofit private schools, and residential child care institutions across the United States. Signed into law by President Harry Truman in 1946, it is run by the USDA’s Food and Nutrition Service and remains one of the largest child nutrition safety nets in the country.
How the Program Works
The NSLP operates on a reimbursement model. Schools serve meals that meet federal nutrition standards, and the USDA pays them back a set amount for each lunch. For the 2025â26 school year, schools receive $4.16 for every free lunch served and $3.76 for every reduced-price lunch. Even meals purchased at full price earn a smaller federal reimbursement of around 44 to 46 cents per lunch, depending on the share of low-income students at the school. Schools that meet additional nutrition benchmarks can earn an extra 9 cents per meal in performance-based funding.
This structure means schools don’t receive a lump-sum budget. Their federal funding scales directly with the number of qualifying meals they serve each day.
Who Qualifies for Free or Reduced-Price Meals
Eligibility is based on household income relative to the federal poverty level. Children in families earning at or below 130% of the poverty line qualify for free meals. Those in families earning between 130% and 185% of the poverty line qualify for reduced-price meals, which cost no more than 40 cents. Families above that threshold pay full price, though even those meals are federally subsidized to a small degree.
Children are also automatically eligible if their household participates in programs like SNAP (food stamps) or Temporary Assistance for Needy Families. Foster children and children experiencing homelessness typically qualify for free meals without a separate application.
Community Eligibility Provision
In high-poverty areas, schools can skip the application process entirely through the Community Eligibility Provision (CEP). Schools or districts where a large share of students are already enrolled in programs like SNAP can adopt CEP and serve breakfast and lunch at no cost to every enrolled student, regardless of individual family income. Instead of collecting household applications, the school is reimbursed based on a formula tied to the percentage of students categorically eligible for free meals. This simplifies administration and reduces stigma, since every student eats for free. Research has linked CEP adoption to roughly a 5% decline in household food insecurity in participating communities.
What Schools Are Required to Serve
School lunches under the NSLP must meet specific calorie ranges and nutrient limits that vary by grade level. For elementary students (grades Kâ5), lunches must fall between 550 and 650 calories. Middle schoolers get 600 to 700 calories, and high schoolers get 750 to 850. Saturated fat is capped at less than 10% of total calories across all age groups.
Sodium limits are tightening. Through June 2027, elementary lunches are capped at 1,110 milligrams of sodium, with middle and high school meals allowed slightly more. Starting July 2027, those limits drop to 935 milligrams for elementary, 1,035 for middle school, and 1,080 for high school. A new added-sugar cap of less than 10% of total calories also takes effect in July 2027.
Meals must include specific daily servings of fruits, vegetables, grains, meat or meat alternatives, and milk. These requirements are averaged over the school week, so a Monday lunch might look different from a Thursday lunch, but the five-day average must hit every target.
Effects on Students
The program’s impact goes beyond hunger relief. Schools that contract with healthier meal providers have seen student test scores increase by 0.03 to 0.05 standard deviations, a modest but consistent improvement. The academic gains tend to be larger for economically disadvantaged students, which makes sense: children who would otherwise go without a nutritious midday meal benefit the most from receiving one.
Multiple studies have found that subsidized school meals improve not just test performance but also attendance and classroom behavior. For many low-income families, school lunch is the most nutritionally complete meal a child eats on any given day. The program effectively functions as both a food security intervention and an educational support, since hungry children struggle to concentrate regardless of how well they’re taught.
How to Apply
At most schools, families fill out a single application at the start of the school year. The form asks for household size and income, and the school district determines eligibility. If your child’s school participates in CEP, no application is needed at all, and every student eats free automatically. You can check with your school’s front office or nutrition services department to find out which option applies.
The NSLP also covers afterschool snacks in qualifying afterschool care programs, reimbursed at $1.26 per free snack and 63 cents per reduced-price snack for the 2025â26 school year. Some schools participate in the related School Breakfast Program as well, which operates under a similar reimbursement structure but with separate funding rates.