Free and reduced-price meal enrollment does not measure student poverty: Evidence and policy significance

Ishtiaque Fazlul, Cory Koedel and Eric Parsons

Economics of Education Review, 2023, vol. 94, issue C

Abstract: Free and reduced-price meal (FRM) enrollment is commonly used in education research and policy applications as an indicator of student poverty. However, using multiple data sources external to the school system, we show that FRM status is a poor proxy for poverty, with enrollment rates far exceeding what would be expected based on stated income thresholds for program participation. This is true even without accounting for community eligibility for free meals, although community eligibility has exacerbated the problem in recent years. Over the course of showing the limitations of using FRM data to measure poverty, we also provide early evidence on the potential value of two alterative measures of school poverty.

Keywords: School poverty; Free and reduced price lunch; Free and reduced price meals; School funding; School accountability; School neighborhood poverty; Direct certification (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0272775723000213
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ecoedu:v:94:y:2023:i:c:s0272775723000213

DOI: 10.1016/j.econedurev.2023.102374

Access Statistics for this article

Economics of Education Review is currently edited by E. Cohn

More articles in Economics of Education Review from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().