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  • ED and USDA Should Do More to Close the SNAP Gap

    ED and USDA Should Do More to Close the SNAP Gap

    The Government Accountability Office is urging the Education and Agriculture Departments to better coordinate their efforts to connect students with SNAP benefits.

    Alex Potemkin/E+/Getty Images

    A new Government Accountability Office report concludes that the Education and Agriculture Departments should be doing more to ensure college students receive federal food assistance. Despite reforms, too few students are notified they could be eligible for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP.

    For instance, the GAO found that the Education Department’s plan to notify students about food assistance programs misses about 40 percent of those eligible for the aid.

    The report, released Thursday, partly blames faulty communication and data sharing between the Education Department, the USDA’s Food and Nutrition Service, colleges, and state agencies.

    “It’s crucial that ED and USDA collaborate effectively, so that all eligible students can access the resources they need to thrive,” Rep. Bobby Scott, a Virginia Democrat and ranking member of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, said in a statement. (He also emphasized that for the Education Department to help students, it has to remain intact.)

    To reach its conclusions, the GAO interviewed officials at both federal agencies and at colleges and SNAP offices in California, Massachusetts and Washington, states actively working on student outreach, to learn more about students’ access to SNAP benefits. The report also based its findings on interviews with members of multiple higher education associations and an analysis of data from the Education Department’s 2020 National Postsecondary Student Aid Study. The audit took place between May 2023 and February 2025.

    ‘Gaps in Planning and Execution’

    The report pointed out that the Education Department and USDA have new legal avenues to help students obtain SNAP benefits.

    The FAFSA Simplification Act, which passed in 2020 and included provisions related to student outreach that took effect last summer, requires the Education Department to notify low-income students of federal benefits, like SNAP, based on their Free Application for Federal Student Aid. The law also allows the Education Department to share FAFSA data with the USDA and state SNAP agencies to reach out to potentially eligible students and streamline their enrollment in the program.

    The report commended the two federal agencies for taking steps to connect students with SNAP benefits, including a memorandum of understanding in September 2024 with commitments from both agencies to take action on student access to SNAP. Notably, the Department of Education agreed to send out annual emails with information about SNAP to colleges and potentially eligible low-income students, sending emails to approximately eight million students in November 2024.

    “But gaps in planning and execution remain,” according to the report.

    The GAO accused the Education Department of initially offering insufficient guidance as to how data sharing would work, leaving colleges and state higher ed agencies in the dark.

    In a December 2023 survey, 11 out of 19 state higher ed agency officials said it was unclear to them whether organizations could use student data for SNAP outreach, 15 out of 19 weren’t sure if they needed students’ consent to use certain data, and 12 out of 19 didn’t know which rules applied to which data sources. A 2023 survey of colleges by the Higher Learning Advocates and the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators similarly found that fewer than a quarter of 182 colleges did outreach to students about federal benefits because of worries they’d incorrectly use FAFSA data. The department later provided more clear guidance.

    The GAO also found that there still isn’t a clear, written process in place for data sharing between the Education Department and other federal and state SNAP agencies. The process involves obtaining student consent and establishing individual data-sharing agreements with each agency that administers benefits, according to department officials, but the details remain hazy.

    “While officials told us they intend to move forward with sharing FAFSA data with other agencies, Education does not have a formal plan in place for how it would implement this effort, nor has the agency estimated a timeframe for when it would begin sharing data,” the report noted. “This could lead to delays in vulnerable college students getting information that could help them access food and benefits they are eligible for.”

    The GAO also identified flaws in the Education Department’s system for notifying students about SNAP benefits.

    As of November 2024, students eligible for Pell Grants who report their households receive at least one federal benefit automatically get a notification on their FAFSA submission page about other federal benefit programs with a link to more information. But the GAO’s analysis of Education Department data found that an estimated 40 percent of students who could be eligible for SNAP don’t meet both criteria. For example, some Pell-eligible students don’t apply for federal benefits, and graduate students may be eligible for SNAP but can’t receive Pell Grants. The GAO critiqued the department for not consulting with the USDA or other agencies on its approach.

    The report also doesn’t let the USDA off the hook. The GAO argued that the USDA urged state SNAP agencies to target outreach to students but, like the Education Department, left out key details in its guidance, creating “areas of ambiguity.” College and state SNAP agency officials reported to the GAO that they weren’t sure if or when they could access or use students’ SNAP data and had trouble getting their questions answered at the USDA’s Food and Nutrition Service regional offices.

    “Without clear guidance on using and sharing SNAP data for student outreach and application assistance, states and colleges could inconsistently and inaccurately interpret what is allowable,” the report stated. “This could lead to missed opportunities for informing outreach and application efforts or some unintentionally engaging in noncompliance.”

    What’s Next

    The report offered a series of recommendations to the Education Department and the USDA to improve their work on behalf of students.

    Notably, the GAO urged the education secretary to write up a formal plan for sharing FAFSA data with SNAP administrators, consult with the USDA to evaluate its system for notifying potentially SNAP-eligible students and better inform colleges and state SNAP agencies about the notification system. The USDA was also tasked with issuing better, more updated guidance to state SNAP agencies, in partnership with the Education Department, to clarify how student data can be used in outreach.

    The GAO asserted that the stakes are high if these processes don’t improve.

    “In fiscal year 2023, the U.S. Department of Education spent approximately $31.4 billion dollars [sic] on Pell Grants to help over 6 million students with financial need attend college,” the report read. “This substantial federal investment in higher education is at risk of not serving its intended purpose if college students drop out because of limited or uncertain access to food.”

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  • New Food Security Threats 5 Years After COVID-Era Effort to Feed All Kids – The 74

    New Food Security Threats 5 Years After COVID-Era Effort to Feed All Kids – The 74

    A multi-pronged attack on food aid by Republican lawmakers could mean more of the nation’s children will go hungry — both at home and at school.

    The U.S. Department of Agriculture recently cut two federal programs that provided roughly $1 billion in funding for the purchase of food by schools and food banks. 

    And the Community Eligibility Provision, which reimburses tens of thousands of schools that provide free breakfast and lunch to all students, may tighten its requirements, potentially pushing some 12 million kids out of the program.

    These moves come at the same time the House Republican budget plan calls for deep cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP. The program fed more than 42 million low-income people per month nationwide in 2023. In 2022, 40% were younger than 18.  

    This recent shift reflects a stark reversal of earlier, nationwide efforts to keep families fed during the pandemic. Many districts, such as Baltimore, organized grab-and-go meals sites days after schools were shuttered in March 2020 with no identification or personal information required. Those initiatives led to the nation’s food insecurity rate dropping to a 20-year low when it reached 10.2% in 2021, down from a 14.9% high a decade earlier, according to the USDA.

    It has since crept back up to 13.5% and now, five years after schools utilized USDA waivers to deliver meals in innovative ways, they are bracing for what could be massive cuts from the federal government.

    Latoya Roberson, manager at Mergenthaler Vocational-Technical High School in Baltimore (Baltimore City Public Schools) 

    Elizabeth A. Marchetta, executive director of food and nutrition services for Baltimore City Public Schools, said 31 campuses — serving 19,000 children — would lose out on free breakfast and lunch if the Community Eligibility Provision changes go through. They are among 393 schools and 251,318 children statewide who would be shut out. 

    “It would be devastating,” Marchetta said. “These are critical funds. If we are not being reimbursed for all of the meals we’re serving … the money has to come from somewhere else in the school district, so that is really not great.”

    Map: Eamonn Fitzmaurice/The 74, Data:Food Research & Action Cen

    Nearly 48,000 schools in more than 7,700 districts benefited from the Community Eligibility Provision in the 2023-24 school year. The program reimburses schools that provide universal free meals based on the percentage of their students who automatically qualify for free and reduced-price lunch because their families receive other types of assistance, like SNAP. 

    In 2023, after the COVID-era policy ended where any student could receive a free school meal regardless of income, President Biden lowered the percentage of high-need students required for a school to qualify from 40% to 25%, greatly expanding participation. 

    House GOP Budget Committee Chairman Jodey Arrington now seeks to raise the rate to 60%. The budget proposal would also require all students applying for free and reduced-price meals to submit documentation verifying their family income.

    School meal debt, a barometer of food insecurity among students, is already on the rise. It will almost certainly increase if universal school meals disappear for students whose families make too much to qualify for free and reduced-price lunch but too little to afford to buy meals at school. At the same time, kids who are eligible for free and reduced-price meals could lose that benefit if the required paperwork becomes harder. 

    In the fall of 2023, across 808 school districts, the median amount of school meal debt was $5,495. By the fall of 2024, that amount reached $6,900 across 766 districts, a 25% increase, according to the School Nutrition Association.

    It was just $2,000 a decade earlier. A trio of Democratic senators is pushing to erase the $262 million annual debt total, with Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman saying in 2023, “‘School lunch debt’ is a term so absurd that it shouldn’t even exist. That’s why I’m proud to introduce this bill to cancel the nation’s student meal debt and stop humiliating kids and penalizing hunger.”

    Research shows students benefit mightily from free meals: those who attend schools that adopted the Community Eligibility Provision saw lower rates of obesity compared to those who did not. Free in-school meals are also credited for boosting attendance among low-income children, improving classroom behavior and lowering suspensions.

    Joel Berg, CEO of Hunger Free America. 

    Joel Berg, the CEO of Hunger Free America, said further cuts will greatly harm the poorest students. 

    “Over the last few years, things have gone from bad to worse,” he said. “We were all raised seeing Frank Capra movies, where, in the end everything works out. But that’s not how the real world works. In the real world, when the economy gets a cold, poor people get cancer.”

    Hunger Free America found the number of Americans who didn’t have enough to eat over two one-week periods increased by 55.2% between August-September 2021 and August-September 2024. The states with the highest rates of food insecure children were Texas at 23.8%, Oklahoma at 23.2% and Nebraska at 22.6%. Georgia and Arkansas both came in at 22.4%. 

    The USDA slashed the $660 million Local Food for Schools Cooperative Agreement Program for 2025 — it allowed states to purchase local foods, including fresh fruits and vegetables, for distribution to schools and child care institutions — and $500 million from the Local Food Purchase Assistance Cooperative Agreement Program, which supported food banks nationwide. 

    Diane Pratt-Heavner, director of media relations for the School Nutrition Association, said that as families struggle with the high cost of groceries, the government should be doing more — not less — to bolster school meals and other food aid programs. 

    “We’re urging Congress not only to protect the federal Community Eligibility Provision, but to expand it,” Pratt-Heavner said. “Ideally, all students should have access to free school breakfast and lunch as part of their education.” 

    SNAP benefits stood at $4.80 per person per day through 2020 before jumping to more than $6 per person per day after they were adjusted for rising food and other costs. Even then, the higher amount was not enough to cover the cost of a moderately priced meal in most locations. 

    Republicans in Congress seek to cut the program by $230 billion over the next nine years, possibly by returning to the pre-pandemic allotment of $4.80 and/or expanding work-related requirements, said Salaam Bhatti, SNAP director at the Food Research & Action Center. 

    Another possibility, he said, is that SNAP costs could be pushed onto states — including those that can’t afford them. 

    “This would be an unfunded mandate,” Bhatti said. “States would have to take away from their discretionary spending to offset the cost and if it is not a mandate, then states in rural America and in the South that don’t have the budgets just won’t do it.” 

    Food-related funding decreases come as the child tax credit, created to help parents offset the cost of raising children, is also facing uncertainty, said Megan Curran, the director of policy at the Center on Poverty and Social Policy at Columbia University.

    The American Rescue Plan increased the amount of the child tax credit from $2,000 to $3,600 for qualifying children under age 6, and $3,000 for those under age 18. Many taxpayers received monthly advance payments in the second half of 2021, instead of waiting until tax filing season to receive the full benefits. The move cut child poverty nearly in half. The expanded child tax credit was allowed to lapse post-pandemic and now even the $2,000 credit could revert back to just $1,000. 

    All food-related and tax benefit cuts — plus the unknowns of Trump-era tariffs — will leave some Americans particularly vulnerable, Curran said. 

    “It’s shaping up to be a very precarious time for families,” she said, “especially families with children.”


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  • BIG CHANGES to SNAP, Medicaid, Social Security & Student Loan Forgiveness – What You NEED to Know! (Low-Income Relief)

    BIG CHANGES to SNAP, Medicaid, Social Security & Student Loan Forgiveness – What You NEED to Know! (Low-Income Relief)

    If you’re worried about losing your benefits, you’re not alone. With new budget resolutions and lawsuits targeting SNAP, Medicaid, and student loan forgiveness, millions of Americans could be impacted.
     

     

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