Many students in the Gulf South get free school meals, but some could lose access as fewer families receive SNAP benefits.
Children whose families are enrolled in the federal food assistance program automatically qualify for free meals, and schools use those numbers to decide whether they can feed every student for free.
Across Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, SNAP enrollment fell about 16% this summer compared to the previous year after Congress approved major changes to the program.
Researchers for the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP), a left-leaning think tank, wrote in a blog post earlier this month that there's “no sign that the decline is due primarily to an improving economy," and pointed to federal policy instead.
Louisiana saw the sharpest decline during that period, but enrollment ticked back up in August and September. Ultimately, from July 2025 through last month, SNAP enrollment dropped 19%, about 154,000 people, including more than 67,000 children.
Even when a family stops receiving benefits, their children may still be eligible, said Carolyn Vega, a policy analyst with No Kid Hungry. But if meals aren’t already free for everyone, parents may have to apply.
“Kids are inevitably gonna slip through the cracks, because families don't get the application, they don't understand it, they’re afraid to fill it out because of immigration concerns,” she said.
Only students who qualify through SNAP, and in most states Medicaid, and a few other small programs count toward the 25% a school needs for community eligibility, to unlock federal funding if they offer free meals to everyone. Vega said that support is why most students in Louisiana and Alabama eat for free.
Even when a school is eligible, the lower the percentage of students who qualify automatically, the less the government pays for meals and the bigger the district’s bill.
That’s why, as SNAP enrollment falls, Vega said more schools could decide they can no longer afford to feed everyone and opt out. Since schools lock in their percentage for four years, the impact will lag.
“There is an income cutoff for meals, and a lot of families may be just over it, but still really struggling, especially right now with high food prices,” she said, adding that "the beauty" of community eligibility is that all kids eat for free.
“They can still show up to school and get meals, and they're gonna be exactly like all of their other peers and no questions asked," she said.
Congress passed wider SNAP work requirements in 2025 and barred some immigrants who previously qualified. It also approved big changes to how the program is funded.
Historically, the federal government and states have split operating costs — paying state workers, maintaining systems and training staff. Now states need to cover 75%.
The federal government pays for the food benefits, but starting in late 2027, states may have to cover a portion of the cost if their error rate — a measure of under- and overpayments to recipients — is at or above 6%.
Researchers for CPBB said in another October blog post that the "most likely reason" for the "larger-than-expected" decline in SNAP enrollment is the coming cost shift.
They wrote that the new policies have "already led many states to erect barriers to people's SNAP participation, such as more paperwork and other requirements that states often don't have the staff to administer."
Mississippi has smaller share of free meal schools
About two-thirds of students across the Gulf South attend schools that provide free meals to everyone. But in Mississippi, less than one in four do.
That’s not because Mississippi has less need. About a quarter of children in both Mississippi and Louisiana live in poverty, according to Census data.
Vega said Mississippi automatically counts fewer kids in low-income families than its neighbors. It’s one of six states that don’t use Medicaid data to enroll children in free meals, while both Louisiana and Alabama do.
At most of Mississippi’s eligible schools, fewer than half of students qualify automatically. The lower that share, the less the federal government pays and the less likely a school is to sign up.
In the 2025–26 school year, fewer than half of Mississippi’s eligible schools used the program, compared with about 95% in Louisiana and 89% in Alabama, where more students qualify automatically.
Meal debt in a paying district
Bianca Coats, a registered dietitian and head of child nutrition for Zachary Community School District, said her system is one of Louisiana’s few “paying districts,” where only children who individually qualify eat for free.
The number of students receiving SNAP benefits in Zachary public schools, outside Baton Rouge, has fallen since 2025, from nearly 2,300 children to closer to 1,200 this month, Coats said.
Zachary still qualifies for federal funding to offer no-cost meals to everybody, but Coats said the money isn’t enough, and the district would have to spend another $1 million. Last year the school had about $50,000 in meal debt — money parents owed.
“People just really can’t afford these meals, whether they’ve been cut from SNAP because of income or some other reason,” she said.
Coats said that this school year, students who don’t qualify for free meals and owe $20 or more get a brown-bag lunch instead.
“We can’t afford to run a child nutrition program with quality food if we can’t get payments from parents or government support,” she said.
The bag lunch includes a turkey sandwich, fruit, a vegetable and milk.
“Most kids want a hot meal, or they need a hot meal,” Coats said.
Vega's group, No Kid Hungry, and others are calling on Congress to give states more time to figure out the SNAP cost shift so families don’t lose benefits they still need.
This story was produced by the Gulf States Newsroom, a collaboration between Mississippi Public Broadcasting, WBHM in Alabama, WWNO and WRKF in Louisiana and NPR.
