So I’ve come across this piece of news where a so called „Arbys foundation“ payed 1000000$ to schools so that they can pay off their student‘s debts.
Now what I am wondering about, what does that mean exactly? Because what the article implies is that children are being indebted for free school lunches, which seems to lack a lot of nuance and would be illegal if it was true.
Does it simply mean that the schools themselves have to come up to pay, or is it a matter of the city government?
PS: I am German therefore I may have screwed up with the grammar and possibly the vocabulary too.
In: Economics
Not all school lunches are free in the U.S.
By default they aren’t.
There is national policy that covers free lunch for students from families earning less than 130% of the poverty limit. And tiered reduced priced lunches for those from families earning between 130-185% of the poverty line.
While a great step, there are gaps. Not every family will qualify as soon as they’re eligible, some can still face financial difficulties even if numerically it seems they don’t based on that metric, some don’t have access to or know how to submit documentation to qualify, or for a huge number of reasons, some students won’t get that benefit or will owe money.
School districts can choose to allow these students to still get food but start a tab against their debt.
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