The Free Meals Funding Freeze Will Bake in Inequalities

Could you get a hot meal for £2.61? That’s what the government are expecting colleges to do by freezing the funding for free meals for the poorest students. The reality is, colleges and students will be left to fill the gap. Once again, young people are left fighting for scraps whilst our government tells us that feeding students is not worth funding. 

The latest further education funding decision undermines any claim the government want to make that the UK is a meritocracy; it is not the best and brightest who achieve in our society, but those who grew up with enough food in their stomachs to focus in lessons, and who weren’t forced into employment because they had to support themselves from the age of 16. 

For the first time in the history of the programmes, DfE have not increased free meals in further-education colleges to match those provided in schools; the allowance per 16–19-year-old student remains at £2.61 per day, a real-terms cut. This freeze will contribute to the baking in of class-inequalities. With the cost of essentials constantly increasing, college students are being quickly priced out of lunch.  

So Who is Expected to Pay?

This decision is baffling. If the government expects colleges to make up the difference between the funding and the actual cost, from what budget do they expect colleges to take this money? Our colleges are in a crisis of underfunding; class sizes continue to grow, teaching staff are burdened with unmanageable responsibilities as student services staff are slashed, and there is no sign this is going to change following recent funding announcements. There is simply no more money in colleges that they can use to top up the difference between government funding and the cost of actually providing meals for students. 

On the other hand, if the government expects students to make up the difference, why do they think that 16-year-olds suddenly have access to money they did not have aged 15? If they are expecting 16-year-olds to start supporting themselves with part-time jobs, they may want to talk to a young person about what it is like trying to find a job at the moment. Almost a million young people are not in education, employment or training, because there are simply no jobs out there for them. More fundamentally, expecting young people from the poorest backgrounds to contribute to their own survival at just 16 whilst other 16-year-olds are supported entirely by their parents bakes in class inequalities. We have seen from university students that having to undertake paid work alongside your studies negatively impacts your grades. It isn’t fair to make working-class teens sacrifice their academic potential because they have to contribute to their own survival, whilst their peers are able to get qualifications that accurately represent their talent and hard work. 

From Empty Stomachs to Empty Promises

Furthermore, many of these students come from food-insecure households. Time and time again, in my role as Vice President for Further Education at the National Union of Students, I hear that these free lunches are the only full meal these young people have in a day. Any cut to these lunches is a significant reduction in the amount of food available to these teenagers. So, this freeze means that young people are left hungry, underfed and undernourished. This leads to those from poor backgrounds being less able to focus in lessons, and thus leaves them unable to achieve as high grades as their middle- and upper-class peers. This further impacts the apprenticeships, jobs and university places open to them. Given that university degrees and quality apprenticeships link directly to future earning potential, the limited options for children and teens who grew up hungry then have a direct effect on how much they earn as adults. Very quickly, we can see how a freeze on free lunches at colleges keeps those who grew up in deprived circumstances from building a better future for themselves and their future families.  

What Needs to Happen Next

This all goes to show how important it is that the Department for Education uplifts the allowance for free college lunches before the next academic year. At the very least, the rate should be brought in line with that of schools, but ideally it would be increased to reflect the real cost of provision and automatically adjusted every year for inflation for both school and college students. 

This debate is incredibly frustrating because we are literally fighting for scraps; the government are telling us that food for children and teens is not worth an extra 5p per day. But we must keep fighting. All young people deserve a fair chance at education. They deserve to be supported by their college and their government. And they deserve the same chances as everyone else to achieve their dreams and work their way out of poverty. 

By Qasim Hussain, NUS Vice President for Further Education