The first day of school is just around the corner, and families across the country are stocking up on notebooks, pencils, and juice boxes for the year ahead. This back-to-school season, however, comes with significant sticker shock: new analysis from Groundwork Collaborative and The Century Foundation finds that the 2026–27 school year will cost families close to $4,000 per child, 10.7 percent more than it did last year, with a typical basket of school supplies costing 7.7 percent more and typical lunch items costing 10.9 percent more. These price spikes come as families can least afford it: nearly half of parents (45 percent) said they plan to take on debt just to afford back-to-school shopping this year. According to a new survey from Deloitte, half of all parents say they are cutting back on other household expenses to make room for back-to-school shopping.
The Trump administration’s economic policies are driving up nearly every price tag this back-to-school season, forcing families to stretch already-thin budgets even thinner and make difficult choices to cover the basics. Trump’s war in Iran has driven up oil prices, increasing the cost of filling the gas tank for the drive to school, and comes after a year-plus of chaotic tariffs, which have raised prices on groceries, consumer goods, and other essentials for working families.
School Supplies Surge Nearly 8 Percent, Costing Families Nearly $175 This Year
The first stop on many parents’ back-to-school shopping trips is already more expensive than it was last year. The price of a typical school supply list has increased 7.7 percent over the past year, with some essentials seeing much larger jumps. The sharpest increases include lunch boxes (26.8 percent), notebooks (23 percent), index cards (22.2 percent), notebook paper (20 percent), and tissues (20 percent).
TABLE 1
Many of these products are manufactured overseas, leaving parents to shoulder the higher prices created by Trump’s tariffs. Newell Brands, the company behind familiar classroom products, including Sharpie, Paper Mate, Expo markers, and Elmer’s glue, offers a clear example of how tariffs are feeding into consumer prices. The company raised prices repeatedly in 2025 as it faced $174 million in tariff costs and expects tariffs to cost another $130 million in 2026. ACCO Brands, the parent company of Mead, Five Star, Trapper Keeper, and Swingline notebooks and binders has faced the same tariff headwinds and more recently has been affected by rising oil prices as a result of Trump’s war in the Middle East, prompting them to hike prices. Logitech, which makes headphones and other classroom tech, told investors that it responded to Trump’s tariffs with “a sizable price increase in the United States” on its products.
As Grocery Prices Rise, School Lunches Will Run Families Nearly 11 Percent More This Year
Families are also paying more to fill their children’s lunch boxes. The price of a typical basket of school lunch staples has increased 10.9 percent over the past year. Packing lunches will cost families more than $3,800 this school year, up nearly $400 from last year. In every aisle of the grocery store, parents are in store for higher prices: fresh blueberries have surged 47.7 percent over the past year, while deli staples have also become more expensive, with sliced ham and turkey both up roughly 12 percent. Even pantry staples are costing more, with sandwich bread up 21.8 percent, apple juice up 20 percent, and animal crackers up 15.7 percent.
TABLE 2
No corner of the lunch box is insulated from the Trump administration’s economic policies. Diesel prices have increased more than 30 percent since the start of Trump’s conflict in the Middle East, making it more expensive to transport and refrigerate food. Oil price spikes stemming from Trump’s Iran war are also increasing the cost of the petroleum-based plastic packaging used for everything from bottles of juice to bags of snacks. Relief is unlikely in the near-term given the vast majority of fertilizer flows through the Strait of Hormuz, and its near-total blockage is spiking prices and threatening supply for farmers, with the potential to drive up the price of produce for months to come. Trump’s tariffs add yet another source of pressure by raising prices for imported ingredients, packaging, and other materials used in food production.
Leading food suppliers have provided sober analyses of the magnitude of these cost pressures and their impact on American consumers. Amcor, one of the world’s largest makers of plastic food packaging, recently told investors that the company “acted fast, implementing responsible price and cost actions” as input cost inflation “significantly exceed[ed] historical norms”—in other words, they passed these higher costs on to consumers. McCormick executives told investors that the conflict in Iran “is really driving more inflation that [they] had not contemplated before.” In April, when the Iran war was still in its early stages, the CEO of Mondelez/Nabisco (maker of snacking staples like Oreo’s and Ritz), told investors that “the Middle East conflict, if it continues, is gonna show in many areas like fertilizers, packaging oil prices, and so on. The consumer will start to feel that probably with increased inflation.”
As prices rise for families in the grocery store, Trump’s marquee legislative achievement, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA), is making it harder for millions of children to access free school meals. By making it harder for low-income families to qualify for and retain food assistance and health care benefits through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and Medicaid, the law reduces the number of children who automatically qualify for free meals. Since the law took effect, millions of people have lost food assistance benefits, including 1.5 million children. For many families, losing access to free school meals means taking on a major new expense. A household with two children in public school would pay roughly $1,890 more each school year for school breakfasts and lunches. Research shows that, in addition to causing financial stress for families, losing food assistance will impact students’ learning and long-term education, health, and economic outcomes. As fewer children qualify, schools risk losing eligibility for the Community Eligibility Provision (CEP), which allows all students to receive free meals regardless of income. Schools that lose CEP also lose federal reimbursements, making it harder to sustain school meal programs at a time when food prices continue to rise.
As families shop for back-to-school outfits, they are finding that the costs of clothes and shoes are climbing. It is no surprise that a majority of consumers (57 percent) are concerned that rising prices will increase the cost of back-to-school clothing and footwear this year. Children’s footwear prices are up 4.7 percent over the past year, marking the fastest increase in almost four years. Families now expect to spend $424.30 on clothing and shoes this school year, up from $418.49 last year. In the wake of substantial increases in tariff costs, Carter’s, Van’s, and Gap have raised prices on clothing and shoes.
Parents will also feel rising costs at the gas pump, since most children travel to school by car, making families particularly sensitive to rising gas prices. With gasoline prices sitting at roughly $4 per gallon as a result of the conflict in the Middle East, the cost of the daily commute is climbing alongside the price of school supplies and lunches.
Back-to-School Expenses Don’t Stop at School Doors
For many families, back-to-school costs extend well beyond the K–12 classroom. Parents are also facing higher child care bills as they arrange before-school care, after-school programs, and care during school breaks. And before children enroll in kindergarten, parents face an avalanche of child care costs that only continues to mount: an analysis of child care costs across the country revealed that from 2025 to 2026, the cost of raising a child increased in forty-six of the forty-eight major metro areas measured. Costs vary by geography, but nowhere is child care cheap. For instance, in San Francisco, raising a kid costs an estimated $43,171 a year, with child care accounting for $22,777 of that. Even in the most affordable metro area in the study—Memphis, Tennessee—families pay $19,922 a year to raise a child, including $8,550 in child care costs. This local data lines up with the national outlook, as the average parent is spending 20 percent or more of annual income on child care, and 31 percent are dipping into savings to cover the expense.
Families are also spending record amounts to send students back to college as federal support becomes harder to come by. Analysis by the National Retail Federation found that college students and families expect to spend a record-high average of $1,438 this year on back-to-school shopping, up from $1,326 last year. The financial burden of attending college is becoming too much for many students to bear. Among surveyed high school graduates who did not enroll in college, 67 percent said the cost of living was the primary reason for their decision, up sharply from 51 percent last year.
Trump’s policies are creating new financial pressures for colleges that could ultimately raise tuition for students. His visa barriers and travel restrictions have contributed to a 17 percent decline in international student enrollment, cutting off a major source of tuition revenue. At the same time, his Medicaid and SNAP cuts are shifting hundreds of billions of dollars in costs onto states, leaving less money available for public colleges and universities. These policies could force colleges to raise tuition and cut programs. The same law is making it harder for the 43 million Americans with federal student debt to pay off what they already owe. Under OBBBA, the 7 million borrowers enrolled in the affordable repayment plans that the law discontinues will be forced onto other plans with higher monthly payments, and all borrowers will face fewer repayment options and a longer path to forgiveness. Additionally, new limits on federal student loans will push more students and families into the private loan market, where borrowers often face higher interest rates and fewer repayment protections.
Conclusion
This back-to-school season, families are paying the price for the Trump administration’s reckless economic policies. The toll runs from the school-supply aisle to the lunchbox and well beyond—day care bills, college tuition invoices, and the gas pump. With another round of tariffs on the way, no end in sight to the conflict in Iran, and impending cuts to nutrition and health care assistance, American families are being pushed beyond their breaking point. As half of parents cut back just to keep up with rising costs, the Trump administration is kicking off the school year by kicking families who are already down.
Tags: tariffs, back to school, affordability
As Students Head Back to School, Families Face 11% Price Hikes
The first day of school is just around the corner, and families across the country are stocking up on notebooks, pencils, and juice boxes for the year ahead. This back-to-school season, however, comes with significant sticker shock: new analysis from Groundwork Collaborative and The Century Foundation finds that the 2026–27 school year will cost families close to $4,000 per child, 10.7 percent more than it did last year, with a typical basket of school supplies costing 7.7 percent more and typical lunch items costing 10.9 percent more. These price spikes come as families can least afford it: nearly half of parents (45 percent) said they plan to take on debt just to afford back-to-school shopping this year. According to a new survey from Deloitte, half of all parents say they are cutting back on other household expenses to make room for back-to-school shopping.
The Trump administration’s economic policies are driving up nearly every price tag this back-to-school season, forcing families to stretch already-thin budgets even thinner and make difficult choices to cover the basics. Trump’s war in Iran has driven up oil prices, increasing the cost of filling the gas tank for the drive to school, and comes after a year-plus of chaotic tariffs, which have raised prices on groceries, consumer goods, and other essentials for working families.
School Supplies Surge Nearly 8 Percent, Costing Families Nearly $175 This Year
The first stop on many parents’ back-to-school shopping trips is already more expensive than it was last year. The price of a typical school supply list has increased 7.7 percent over the past year, with some essentials seeing much larger jumps. The sharpest increases include lunch boxes (26.8 percent), notebooks (23 percent), index cards (22.2 percent), notebook paper (20 percent), and tissues (20 percent).
TABLE 1
Many of these products are manufactured overseas, leaving parents to shoulder the higher prices created by Trump’s tariffs. Newell Brands, the company behind familiar classroom products, including Sharpie, Paper Mate, Expo markers, and Elmer’s glue, offers a clear example of how tariffs are feeding into consumer prices. The company raised prices repeatedly in 2025 as it faced $174 million in tariff costs and expects tariffs to cost another $130 million in 2026. ACCO Brands, the parent company of Mead, Five Star, Trapper Keeper, and Swingline notebooks and binders has faced the same tariff headwinds and more recently has been affected by rising oil prices as a result of Trump’s war in the Middle East, prompting them to hike prices. Logitech, which makes headphones and other classroom tech, told investors that it responded to Trump’s tariffs with “a sizable price increase in the United States” on its products.
As Grocery Prices Rise, School Lunches Will Run Families Nearly 11 Percent More This Year
Families are also paying more to fill their children’s lunch boxes. The price of a typical basket of school lunch staples has increased 10.9 percent over the past year. Packing lunches will cost families more than $3,800 this school year, up nearly $400 from last year. In every aisle of the grocery store, parents are in store for higher prices: fresh blueberries have surged 47.7 percent over the past year, while deli staples have also become more expensive, with sliced ham and turkey both up roughly 12 percent. Even pantry staples are costing more, with sandwich bread up 21.8 percent, apple juice up 20 percent, and animal crackers up 15.7 percent.
TABLE 2
No corner of the lunch box is insulated from the Trump administration’s economic policies. Diesel prices have increased more than 30 percent since the start of Trump’s conflict in the Middle East, making it more expensive to transport and refrigerate food. Oil price spikes stemming from Trump’s Iran war are also increasing the cost of the petroleum-based plastic packaging used for everything from bottles of juice to bags of snacks. Relief is unlikely in the near-term given the vast majority of fertilizer flows through the Strait of Hormuz, and its near-total blockage is spiking prices and threatening supply for farmers, with the potential to drive up the price of produce for months to come. Trump’s tariffs add yet another source of pressure by raising prices for imported ingredients, packaging, and other materials used in food production.
Leading food suppliers have provided sober analyses of the magnitude of these cost pressures and their impact on American consumers. Amcor, one of the world’s largest makers of plastic food packaging, recently told investors that the company “acted fast, implementing responsible price and cost actions” as input cost inflation “significantly exceed[ed] historical norms”—in other words, they passed these higher costs on to consumers. McCormick executives told investors that the conflict in Iran “is really driving more inflation that [they] had not contemplated before.” In April, when the Iran war was still in its early stages, the CEO of Mondelez/Nabisco (maker of snacking staples like Oreo’s and Ritz), told investors that “the Middle East conflict, if it continues, is gonna show in many areas like fertilizers, packaging oil prices, and so on. The consumer will start to feel that probably with increased inflation.”
As prices rise for families in the grocery store, Trump’s marquee legislative achievement, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA), is making it harder for millions of children to access free school meals. By making it harder for low-income families to qualify for and retain food assistance and health care benefits through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and Medicaid, the law reduces the number of children who automatically qualify for free meals. Since the law took effect, millions of people have lost food assistance benefits, including 1.5 million children. For many families, losing access to free school meals means taking on a major new expense. A household with two children in public school would pay roughly $1,890 more each school year for school breakfasts and lunches. Research shows that, in addition to causing financial stress for families, losing food assistance will impact students’ learning and long-term education, health, and economic outcomes. As fewer children qualify, schools risk losing eligibility for the Community Eligibility Provision (CEP), which allows all students to receive free meals regardless of income. Schools that lose CEP also lose federal reimbursements, making it harder to sustain school meal programs at a time when food prices continue to rise.
As families shop for back-to-school outfits, they are finding that the costs of clothes and shoes are climbing. It is no surprise that a majority of consumers (57 percent) are concerned that rising prices will increase the cost of back-to-school clothing and footwear this year. Children’s footwear prices are up 4.7 percent over the past year, marking the fastest increase in almost four years. Families now expect to spend $424.30 on clothing and shoes this school year, up from $418.49 last year. In the wake of substantial increases in tariff costs, Carter’s, Van’s, and Gap have raised prices on clothing and shoes.
Parents will also feel rising costs at the gas pump, since most children travel to school by car, making families particularly sensitive to rising gas prices. With gasoline prices sitting at roughly $4 per gallon as a result of the conflict in the Middle East, the cost of the daily commute is climbing alongside the price of school supplies and lunches.
Back-to-School Expenses Don’t Stop at School Doors
For many families, back-to-school costs extend well beyond the K–12 classroom. Parents are also facing higher child care bills as they arrange before-school care, after-school programs, and care during school breaks. And before children enroll in kindergarten, parents face an avalanche of child care costs that only continues to mount: an analysis of child care costs across the country revealed that from 2025 to 2026, the cost of raising a child increased in forty-six of the forty-eight major metro areas measured. Costs vary by geography, but nowhere is child care cheap. For instance, in San Francisco, raising a kid costs an estimated $43,171 a year, with child care accounting for $22,777 of that. Even in the most affordable metro area in the study—Memphis, Tennessee—families pay $19,922 a year to raise a child, including $8,550 in child care costs. This local data lines up with the national outlook, as the average parent is spending 20 percent or more of annual income on child care, and 31 percent are dipping into savings to cover the expense.
Families are also spending record amounts to send students back to college as federal support becomes harder to come by. Analysis by the National Retail Federation found that college students and families expect to spend a record-high average of $1,438 this year on back-to-school shopping, up from $1,326 last year. The financial burden of attending college is becoming too much for many students to bear. Among surveyed high school graduates who did not enroll in college, 67 percent said the cost of living was the primary reason for their decision, up sharply from 51 percent last year.
Trump’s policies are creating new financial pressures for colleges that could ultimately raise tuition for students. His visa barriers and travel restrictions have contributed to a 17 percent decline in international student enrollment, cutting off a major source of tuition revenue. At the same time, his Medicaid and SNAP cuts are shifting hundreds of billions of dollars in costs onto states, leaving less money available for public colleges and universities. These policies could force colleges to raise tuition and cut programs. The same law is making it harder for the 43 million Americans with federal student debt to pay off what they already owe. Under OBBBA, the 7 million borrowers enrolled in the affordable repayment plans that the law discontinues will be forced onto other plans with higher monthly payments, and all borrowers will face fewer repayment options and a longer path to forgiveness. Additionally, new limits on federal student loans will push more students and families into the private loan market, where borrowers often face higher interest rates and fewer repayment protections.
Conclusion
This back-to-school season, families are paying the price for the Trump administration’s reckless economic policies. The toll runs from the school-supply aisle to the lunchbox and well beyond—day care bills, college tuition invoices, and the gas pump. With another round of tariffs on the way, no end in sight to the conflict in Iran, and impending cuts to nutrition and health care assistance, American families are being pushed beyond their breaking point. As half of parents cut back just to keep up with rising costs, the Trump administration is kicking off the school year by kicking families who are already down.
Tags: tariffs, back to school, affordability