There is Such Thing as a Free Lunch: School Meals, Stigma, and Student Discipline

Vitaly Radsky, Thurston Domina, Leah Clark and Renuka Bhaskar

Working Papers from U.S. Census Bureau, Center for Economic Studies

Abstract: The Community Eligibility Provision (CEP) allows high-poverty schools to offer free meals to all students regardless of household income. Conceptualizing universal meal provision as a strategy to alleviate stigma associated with school meals, we hypothesize that CEP implementation reduces the incidence of suspensions, particularly for students from low-income backgrounds and minoritized students. We link educational records for students enrolled in Oregon public schools between 2010 and 2017 with administrative data describing their families’ household income and social safety net program participation. Difference-in-differences analyses indicate that CEP has protective effects on the probability of suspension for students in participating schools, particularly for students from low-income families, students who received free or reduced-price meals prior to CEP implementation, and Hispanic students.

Keywords: Community Eligibility Provision; Free/reduced price lunch; Suspension; Universal meals (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I21 I24 I28 I32 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 57 pages
Date: 2022-07
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-edu, nep-hea and nep-ure
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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https://www2.census.gov/ces/wp/2022/CES-WP-22-23R.pdf Revised version, 2023 (application/pdf)
https://www2.census.gov/ces/wp/2022/CES-WP-22-23.pdf First version, 2022 (application/pdf)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cen:wpaper:22-23

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