Nutrition and cognitive achievement: An evaluation of the School Breakfast Program

• I examine the impact of the School Breakfast Program on achievement.
• The School Breakfast Program provides subsidized breakfast to low-income students.
• States require high poverty schools to offer breakfast.
• These state requirements increase the availability of breakfast.
• The availability of breakfast increases achievement.

This paper investigates the impact of the School Breakfast Program (SBP) on cognitive achievement. The SBP is a federal entitlement program that offers breakfast to any student, including free breakfast for any low-income student, who attends a school that participates in the program. To increase the availability of the SBP, many states mandate that schools participate in the program if the percent of free or reduced-price eligible students in a school exceeds a specific threshold. Using the details of these mandates as a source of identifying variation, I find that the availability of the program increases student achievement.