Free and Reduced-Price Lunch (FRL)

How It Works

The National School Lunch Program serves approximately 30 million students daily. Students from families earning below 130% of the federal poverty level qualify for free meals, while those between 130-185% qualify for reduced-price meals (capped at 40 cents for lunch). The percentage of students receiving free or reduced-price lunch, often abbreviated as FRL% or FRPL%, has been the standard poverty indicator in education research and policy for decades. A school with 80% FRL is considered high-poverty, while schools below 25% are considered low-poverty. FRL percentage matters because poverty is the single strongest demographic predictor of academic outcomes. Schools with high FRL rates face compounding challenges: students may experience food insecurity, housing instability, limited access to books and technology at home, and higher rates of chronic absenteeism. However, some high-poverty schools achieve remarkable academic results, these "positive outlier" schools are among the most studied in education research. On OpenSchoolData, FRL percentage is displayed as demographic context alongside proficiency and enrollment data, helping parents understand the population a school serves. The Community Eligibility Provision (CEP) has complicated FRL as a poverty measure, since CEP schools provide free meals to all students regardless of individual income, making school-level FRL data less precise in some districts.

Related Terms

• Title I, A federal program providing supplemental funding to schools with high percentages of students from low-income families, serving approximately 25 million students in over 56,000 schools.
• Achievement Gap, Persistent differences in academic performance between student groups defined by race, ethnicity, income, disability status, or English proficiency, one of the most studied problems in American education.
• Special Education, Specially designed instruction provided at no cost to parents for students with disabilities, as mandated by the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA).
• English Learner (EL), A student whose primary language is not English and who is developing English language proficiency, previously referred to as Limited English Proficient (LEP) or English Language Learner (ELL).