Free food for thought: The effect of universal free school meals on graduation rates in the US

IF 2.1 4区经济学 Q2 ECONOMICS

Economics Letters Pub Date : 2025-02-01 DOI:10.1016/j.econlet.2024.112127

Vivian Zhao

引用次数: 0

Abstract

This paper evaluates the impact of the Community Eligibility Provision (CEP) – which expanded free school meal access at low-income schools across the US – on high school graduation rates. Using education and demographic data, I compare within-school outcomes between 2011 and 2020. I find that CEP improved graduation rates by 1.506 percentage points (p = 0.024) at schools where a lower percentage of students were originally eligible for free or reduced-price meals. Further analysis shows that a single year of exposure improved graduation rates by 1.373 percentage points (p = 0.040) and exposure for over a year increased graduation rates by 1.787 percentage points (p = 0.039).

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来源期刊

Economics Letters ECONOMICS-

CiteScore

3.20

自引率

5.00%

发文量

348

审稿时长

30 days

期刊介绍： Many economists today are concerned by the proliferation of journals and the concomitant labyrinth of research to be conquered in order to reach the specific information they require. To combat this tendency, Economics Letters has been conceived and designed outside the realm of the traditional economics journal. As a Letters Journal, it consists of concise communications (letters) that provide a means of rapid and efficient dissemination of new results, models and methods in all fields of economic research.