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.