Single mother Rebecca Wood, 45, was already dealing with high medical bills in 2020 when she noticed she was being charged a $2.49 “program fee” each time she loaded money onto her daughter’s school lunch account.
As more schools turn to cashless payment systems, more districts have contracted with processing companies that charge as much as $3.25 or 4% to 5% per transaction, according to a new report from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The report found that though legally schools must offer a fee-free option to pay by cash or check, there’s rarely transparency around it.
“It wouldn’t have been a big deal if I had hundreds of dollars to dump into her account at the beginning of the year,” Wood said. “I didn’t. I was paying as I went, which meant I was paying a fee every time. The $2.50 transaction fee was the price of a lunch. So I’d pay for six lunches, but only get five.”
Oh, I didn’t mean to imply it went to the food in any way, it seems a straight processing fee because we can thing. That’s why I was surprised the list price of the lunch was only $3.
My $0.85 in 1986 converts to $2.44 and $1.85 in 1998 converts to $3.57, so if the price of lunch is around $3, that makes it seem like it has been inflation proof, at least for out of pocket cost. I’m sure property tax and state tax has subsidized it, but cost to kids/parents sounds like it’s held flat.
My cheapest equivalent meal from the work cafeteria is about $10 while only being modestly higher in quality than what i remember school lunch being like,