Growing evidence suggests free school meal policies improve student health outcomes and nutrition equity. A key barrier to passage of these policies is concerns regarding potential costs, thus, a broader value for money evaluation is essential to inform policy decisions. This study aims to compare ‘intervention’ states with free school meal policies (i.e., universal free school meals [UFSM], removal of reduced-price meals, and/or expanded eligibility for free school meals) with control states (i.e., traditional means-tested approach) to estimate their broader value for money along the domains of public health and human capital (i.e., education), along with their equity and distributional impact. In collaboration with the United States Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Economic Research Service (ERS) and data requests from states, data will be collected at the school, state, and federal levels for intervention and matched control states. Data will be collected in 12 intervention and 12 matched control states (selected based on similar demographics, including race/ethnicity, percent poverty, child food insecurity rates, and political leaning). Using benefit-cost analysis approaches, an economic evaluation of free school meal policies will be conducted. The impact of these policies on public health and human capital, along with their comprehensive implementation costs, will be estimated.