Reducing Administrative Burden through Universal Free Lunch: Effects on Student Outcomes and Political Support for Schools

• In Event: Perspectives on the Effects of Universal School Meal Programs on Students and Their Communities

Abstract

The Community Eligibility Provision (CEP) allows schools and school districts to provide free meals to all students by proving that at least 40% of their student population would be income-eligible to receive a free meal. By participating in the CEP, the administrative burden of filling out applications for free or reduced-price meals is removed from individual families. Burden includes not only the time and effort of filling out and turning in the form (compliance costs), but also the stigma and emotions associated with receiving a free or reduced-price lunch when not all students do so (psychological costs). Schools and districts are often able to utilize other administrative data that they already possess to compute the proportion of their student population that would be eligible for free meals, so administrative burden is reduced for schools, too.

Utilizing a difference-in-differences research design over the period of CEP rollout, this study examines how student outcomes and community-level political support for school districts were affected by the implementation of the CEP. Focusing on Wisconsin due to a rich, restricted-access dataset, the study compares individual-level outcomes of economically disadvantaged students and district-level voting choices in school referenda measures on the ballot in schools that implemented the CEP versus ones that did not. In Wisconsin, the CEP began implementation in 2014-2015, with 15% of schools participating; by 2022-2023, it was 75%.

Given the reduction in administrative burden, I hypothesize that student outcomes will be better for economically disadvantaged students in CEP-implementing schools compared with those in non-CEP schools. I also expect that students whose families needed to complete the free or reduced-price lunch application for more years may have a larger improvement in student outcomes compared with students who had fewer years of participation in the program prior to CEP implementation. Student outcomes include standardized test scores, high school graduation, school dropout, and a variety of disciplinary outcomes.

Turning to community-level effects, I examine how CEP implementation shaped voting choice in school district referenda. Applying policy feedback theory, I would expect this significant reduction in household-level administrative burden—and free lunches for all students—to result in a positive policy feedback effect. Over the period of study in Wisconsin, there were thousands of district-level referenda on the ballot, which typically increase local taxes or otherwise direct more funds to schools. I ask, after the implementation of the CEP, did voters support school district referenda at greater levels than they would have if their district did not implement the CEP? I hypothesize that districts that implemented the CEP received more votes in support of increasing funding to their districts compared with districts that did not implement the CEP. 

Given that at least around 280 more schools in Wisconsin (or 12% of the total WI schools) would have been eligible to participate in the CEP but did not in 2022-2023, there is a significant opportunity for more schools to participate in the program. The findings of my study may serve as additional incentives for schools to opt in.

Author

• Meredith Dost, University of Wisconsin-Madison
  Presenting Author