States that offer free/red lunch, exempt from reporting assets

Currently, eight states provide universal free lunch for students in the USA. California, Colorado, Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, Maine, Massachusettes, New Mexico, Vermont, and some other locations, like a few municipalities in New York City, have moved to universally free lunch for school students.

In districts/states that offer 100% free or reduced-price lunch, families should select they received that benefit in the new 2024-25 simplified FAFSA. Doing so will exempt them from reporting assets if they received the benefit in 2022 or 2023. Unlike the previous years, the new FAFSA will be released in December 2023 instead of October 1.