As students across the country return to classrooms and campuses, they and their families are facing higher prices for back-to-school essentials—from school supplies and clothes, to school meals, technology, and transportation. President Trump’s failure to keep his campaign promise to address high and rising prices has already translated into bigger back-to-school bills. And now, Trump’s tariff policies are imposing an additional back-to-school tax on families with children.
New analysis by Groundwork Collaborative and The Century Foundation finds that a typical assortment of first-day school supplies will cost an average of 7.3 percent more this back-to-school season—nearly three times headline inflation over the past year. Price increases for some supplies like index cards have jumped more than 40 percent, and binders and folders will run parents 13 percent more this back-to-school shopping season.
Further, families will pay nearly $163 more this year for school lunch staples, a 5.4 percent increase over last year. The price of brown-bag essentials such as juice boxes, grapes, and strawberries are up by an average of 22 percent. This is compounded by the effects of Trump’s tariffs which are hiking the prices of clothing and shoes by as much as 40 percent, electronics by 30 percent, and college textbooks by 10 percent.
To make matters worse for families with children, costs are slated to increase even more in coming years as Trump’s budget law takes effect, slashing assistance to everyday Americans—including funds toward food for students and federal loans that help students afford college—to pay for more than $4 trillion in tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations.
This comes as a new Century Foundation survey of over 2,000 voters, conducted by Morning Consult, reveals that American families are struggling financially. Six in 10 Americans blame President Trump for driving up their cost of living, and 8 in 10—including 68 percent of Republicans—are concerned that Trump’s tariffs will raise prices on purchases such as clothing. More than 8 in 10 are also worried about the price of food in today’s economy. And large majorities of Americans say that it’s gotten harder to raise a family (69 percent), pay for college (72 percent), and find affordable child care (69 percent) over the past twenty-five years—costs that President Trump’s policies are actively increasing.
Here are eight ways Trump is making the back-to-school season more expensive.
1. School supplies
From lunch boxes to crayons to calculators, families are paying more for school supplies. School supply shopping will be 7.3 percent more expensive this year compared to last year, according to new analysis, with cost increases as high as 42.6 percent for items such as index cards (42.6 percent), notebooks (17.1 percent), binders (12.8 percent), and folders (12.7 percent). When asked if tariffs would lead to higher prices, Trump acknowledged they would—and suggested parents should simply buy fewer of the supplies their children need: “They can have five [pencils],” he said. As the CEO of Crayola—which produces all of its colored pencils in Brazil, on which Trump just raised tariffs to 50 percent—recently said, “There is no renewable forest in the United States, so I’m not going to put a plant in North Carolina and make colored pencils. There’s really nothing we can do. It’s just additional cost for us.” (That additional cost, of course, will be paid by the consumer.) As families are paying the price for Trump’s reckless tariffs, his message to America’s school children couldn’t be clearer: don’t expect help, just expect less.
Table 1
Trump’s spat with China in particular has driven up the costs of school supplies. China is the world’s largest exporter of plastic office and school supplies, and the United States is the largest importer of these goods. Trump’s tariffs on Chinese goods, which act as a tax on American buyers, are 30 percentage points higher than at the start of the year—and Trump has threatened to revert to 145 percent if he fails to reach a deal with the Chinese government.
2. School meals and healthy food
President Trump promised to bring down grocery prices “on Day 1,” but food prices have increased significantly since he took office. This school year, families can already expect to pay $163 more to pack their child’s lunch box compared to last school year. And Trump’s tariffs will push costs for lunch box staples even higher. For example, Walmart already raised prices by 8 percent in May on bananas, its top-selling product. And on August 1, Trump announced higher tariffs of up to 15 percent on the five countries that supply nearly all bananas sold in the United States.
Table 2
Higher food prices will also hurt college-bound students, the majority of whom do not participate in a campus meal plan. Nearly 1 in 4 college students experienced food insecurity in recent years.
Trump has already targeted food for students by eliminating the Local Food for Schools program earlier this year, slashing $660 million that schools were using to provide fresh, local food for their students. Now, Trump’s budget law will push students’ and families’ food costs higher with a devastating cut of more than 20 percent to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). Roughly 15.5 million children under age 18 rely on SNAP to get enough to eat, as do 400,000 college students whose households participate in the program. It’s hard to focus on classwork when you’re hungry, which is why research shows SNAP improves academic achievement, health, and behavior among low-income children. Trump’s new law will impact nutrition benefits for more than 22 million families, 62 percent of which are families with children under age 18—some of whom will lose SNAP entirely.
As families are paying the price for Trump’s reckless tariffs, his message to America’s school children couldn’t be clearer: don’t expect help, just expect less.
In addition, Trump’s law also threatens to take away free school meals from some children. That’s because children in households receiving SNAP automatically qualify for free school breakfasts and lunches—as well as Summer EBT, which helps children get enough to eat when school is not in session.
3. Technology
For families looking for a new laptop for their child for school, students beginning college, or even school districts upgrading their technology, tariffs are making computers, tablets, and other electronic devices even more expensive. A school district in Midland, Michigan chose not to replace about a quarter of their laptops after prices nearly doubled from $650 to $1,200 due to tariffs. For education, these devices are essential, and are often already expensive. Yet prices for laptops and tablets are projected to increase by over 30 percent due to the Trump administration’s tariff policies. The July Consumer Price Index (CPI) shows prices for computers and accessories are already up by 2.3 percent since Trump took office, compared to a decline of 4.3 percent in the preceding six months.
4. Clothes and shoes
As families purchase back-to-school outfits and uniforms, they’re finding that Trump’s tariffs disproportionately affect the cost of new clothes and shoes growing children need. Brands such as Carters and Nike have already announced price hikes, and the Yale Budget Lab estimates consumers will face 40 percent higher prices for shoes and 38 percent higher prices for apparel in the next few months. Nearly all shoes sold in the United States are imported, with the vast majority coming from countries where Trump’s tariffs currently stand at 20 percent to 40 percent, such as China, Vietnam, and Indonesia.
Clothes and shoes are second only to electronics in K–12 families’ back-to-school budgets, with the average family expecting to spend nearly $250 in 2025, according to the National Retail Federation’s annual back-to-school survey.
5. Transportation
A majority of all K–12 students get dropped off at school or drive themselves. Moreover, 85 percent of college students live off campus, and almost 80 percent own cars. With car prices expected to rise as much as $4,000 to $12,500 due to Trump’s tariffs, many students and families may struggle to cover the cost of their commute to school. President Trump’s budget law also ends federal tax credits for electric vehicles worth up to $7,500, which are now set to expire September 30.
Meanwhile, students who take the bus to school may be impacted by Trump’s freeze or delay of federal Clean School Bus Program grants, which were set to cover new electric school buses for 530 school districts across the country. This leaves communities in the lurch and students potentially needing alternative ways to get to school.
6. Enrichment activities
The cancellation of many federal grants and weeks-long impoundment of federal formula funds to schools have left many school districts in budgetary chaos, leading to cancellation or delay of funding for key staffing positions and programs related to academic support, enrichment, and more. Families seeking these experiences or services on their own outside of school will have to pay a premium: the cost of lessons or instructions is up nearly 4 percent relative to last year.
Trump has also threatened funds for after-school programming, first delaying this support and then imposing new conditions on its receipt. While the administration ultimately released the $1.4 billion in held-up funds for after-school and other educational programming in mid-July, it remains to be seen whether the delay and new requirements will cause disruptions in this programming—and whether the administration will further target support for students’ education and enrichment.
Meanwhile, Trump’s budget law creates a new tax credit for private-school vouchers that is expected to overwhelmingly benefit higher-income families who already send their children to private schools. This will do nothing to help the vast majority of families who send their children to public schools and for whom back-to-school costs are rising, while further diverting federal funds away from public schools.
7. Child care
In the United States, 69 percent of children under age 6 have all of their parents in the labor force, meaning that accessible, high-quality, and affordable child care is essential for families. Yet, few families have access to such care—and cancelation of after-school enrichment programs may require parents to make their own child care arrangements. In 2024, the average cost of child care in the United States was $13,128 per year. In many states it is higher depending on the age of children and the type of care they receive. And in nearly every state the cost of child care is significantly higher than the price of rent.
Compared to last year, child care prices have risen by 5.7 percent. Six months into his administration, Trump has failed to offer a concrete solution or make meaningful investments to address soaring child care prices, which have risen by nearly 30 percent since 2020, 7 percentage points faster than the overall inflation rate. Trump’s attacks on immigrants, who make up a significant share of the child care workforce, threaten to drive up child care prices further.
8. College costs
College students are grappling with both higher costs and greater uncertainty as they return to campuses. For example, college textbooks were 12.9 percent more expensive compared to last back-to-school season. Per-person spending on back-to-college essentials is projected to drop about 3 percent overall—and 14 percent for electronics—as many lower-income households are forced to cut back on spending due to tariffs.
While students don’t yet know how much Trump’s economy will affect tuition and fees, which are typically set a full year in advance, all signs point to steeper costs ahead. Trump’s draconian Medicaid and SNAP cuts shift hundreds of billions of dollars in costs onto states, squeezing their finances. This will force many states to cut funding to public colleges and universities, leading to tuition increases. And the law makes it harder for many of the 43 million Americans who hold federal student loan debt to repay their loans, increasing monthly payments for many borrowers in the coming years and imposing new loan limits that will push more students into the riskier, more expensive private loan market. Finally, tuition pressures will also increase in response to the 13 percent drop in enrollment among international students amid Trump’s campaign of intimidation. International students generally pay full tuition prices, enabling colleges to keep costs down for U.S. students. All of this comes as 72 percent of Americans already say it’s gotten harder to pay for college over the past quarter century.
Conclusion
President Trump’s policies—including his erratic, punitive tariffs—are squeezing families’ budgets as they prepare to return to school. Not only has Trump failed to keep his promises to tackle high prices, but his massive budget law will soon drive costs even higher for back-to-school essentials as its cuts to programs that children, families, and college students depend on take hold.
Tags: inflation, donald trump, tariffs, back to school
Eight Ways Trump Is Making the Back-to-School Season More Expensive
As students across the country return to classrooms and campuses, they and their families are facing higher prices for back-to-school essentials—from school supplies and clothes, to school meals, technology, and transportation. President Trump’s failure to keep his campaign promise to address high and rising prices has already translated into bigger back-to-school bills. And now, Trump’s tariff policies are imposing an additional back-to-school tax on families with children.
New analysis by Groundwork Collaborative and The Century Foundation finds that a typical assortment of first-day school supplies will cost an average of 7.3 percent more this back-to-school season—nearly three times headline inflation over the past year. Price increases for some supplies like index cards have jumped more than 40 percent, and binders and folders will run parents 13 percent more this back-to-school shopping season.
Further, families will pay nearly $163 more this year for school lunch staples, a 5.4 percent increase over last year. The price of brown-bag essentials such as juice boxes, grapes, and strawberries are up by an average of 22 percent. This is compounded by the effects of Trump’s tariffs which are hiking the prices of clothing and shoes by as much as 40 percent, electronics by 30 percent, and college textbooks by 10 percent.
To make matters worse for families with children, costs are slated to increase even more in coming years as Trump’s budget law takes effect, slashing assistance to everyday Americans—including funds toward food for students and federal loans that help students afford college—to pay for more than $4 trillion in tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations.
This comes as a new Century Foundation survey of over 2,000 voters, conducted by Morning Consult, reveals that American families are struggling financially. Six in 10 Americans blame President Trump for driving up their cost of living, and 8 in 10—including 68 percent of Republicans—are concerned that Trump’s tariffs will raise prices on purchases such as clothing. More than 8 in 10 are also worried about the price of food in today’s economy. And large majorities of Americans say that it’s gotten harder to raise a family (69 percent), pay for college (72 percent), and find affordable child care (69 percent) over the past twenty-five years—costs that President Trump’s policies are actively increasing.
Here are eight ways Trump is making the back-to-school season more expensive.
From lunch boxes to crayons to calculators, families are paying more for school supplies. School supply shopping will be 7.3 percent more expensive this year compared to last year, according to new analysis, with cost increases as high as 42.6 percent for items such as index cards (42.6 percent), notebooks (17.1 percent), binders (12.8 percent), and folders (12.7 percent).1 When asked if tariffs would lead to higher prices, Trump acknowledged they would—and suggested parents should simply buy fewer of the supplies their children need: “They can have five [pencils],” he said. As the CEO of Crayola—which produces all of its colored pencils in Brazil, on which Trump just raised tariffs to 50 percent—recently said, “There is no renewable forest in the United States, so I’m not going to put a plant in North Carolina and make colored pencils. There’s really nothing we can do. It’s just additional cost for us.” (That additional cost, of course, will be paid by the consumer.) As families are paying the price for Trump’s reckless tariffs, his message to America’s school children couldn’t be clearer: don’t expect help, just expect less.
Table 1
Trump’s spat with China in particular has driven up the costs of school supplies. China is the world’s largest exporter of plastic office and school supplies, and the United States is the largest importer of these goods. Trump’s tariffs on Chinese goods, which act as a tax on American buyers, are 30 percentage points higher than at the start of the year—and Trump has threatened to revert to 145 percent if he fails to reach a deal with the Chinese government.
President Trump promised to bring down grocery prices “on Day 1,” but food prices have increased significantly since he took office. This school year, families can already expect to pay $163 more to pack their child’s lunch box compared to last school year.2 And Trump’s tariffs will push costs for lunch box staples even higher. For example, Walmart already raised prices by 8 percent in May on bananas, its top-selling product. And on August 1, Trump announced higher tariffs of up to 15 percent on the five countries that supply nearly all bananas sold in the United States.
Table 2
Higher food prices will also hurt college-bound students, the majority of whom do not participate in a campus meal plan. Nearly 1 in 4 college students experienced food insecurity in recent years.
Trump has already targeted food for students by eliminating the Local Food for Schools program earlier this year, slashing $660 million that schools were using to provide fresh, local food for their students. Now, Trump’s budget law will push students’ and families’ food costs higher with a devastating cut of more than 20 percent to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). Roughly 15.5 million children under age 18 rely on SNAP to get enough to eat, as do 400,000 college students whose households participate in the program.3 It’s hard to focus on classwork when you’re hungry, which is why research shows SNAP improves academic achievement, health, and behavior among low-income children. Trump’s new law will impact nutrition benefits for more than 22 million families, 62 percent of which are families with children under age 18—some of whom will lose SNAP entirely.
In addition, Trump’s law also threatens to take away free school meals from some children. That’s because children in households receiving SNAP automatically qualify for free school breakfasts and lunches—as well as Summer EBT, which helps children get enough to eat when school is not in session.
For families looking for a new laptop for their child for school, students beginning college, or even school districts upgrading their technology, tariffs are making computers, tablets, and other electronic devices even more expensive. A school district in Midland, Michigan chose not to replace about a quarter of their laptops after prices nearly doubled from $650 to $1,200 due to tariffs. For education, these devices are essential, and are often already expensive. Yet prices for laptops and tablets are projected to increase by over 30 percent due to the Trump administration’s tariff policies. The July Consumer Price Index (CPI) shows prices for computers and accessories are already up by 2.3 percent since Trump took office, compared to a decline of 4.3 percent in the preceding six months.
As families purchase back-to-school outfits and uniforms, they’re finding that Trump’s tariffs disproportionately affect the cost of new clothes and shoes growing children need. Brands such as Carters and Nike have already announced price hikes, and the Yale Budget Lab estimates consumers will face 40 percent higher prices for shoes and 38 percent higher prices for apparel in the next few months. Nearly all shoes sold in the United States are imported, with the vast majority coming from countries where Trump’s tariffs currently stand at 20 percent to 40 percent, such as China, Vietnam, and Indonesia.
Clothes and shoes are second only to electronics in K–12 families’ back-to-school budgets, with the average family expecting to spend nearly $250 in 2025, according to the National Retail Federation’s annual back-to-school survey.
A majority of all K–12 students get dropped off at school or drive themselves. Moreover, 85 percent of college students live off campus, and almost 80 percent own cars. With car prices expected to rise as much as $4,000 to $12,500 due to Trump’s tariffs, many students and families may struggle to cover the cost of their commute to school. President Trump’s budget law also ends federal tax credits for electric vehicles worth up to $7,500, which are now set to expire September 30.
Meanwhile, students who take the bus to school may be impacted by Trump’s freeze or delay of federal Clean School Bus Program grants, which were set to cover new electric school buses for 530 school districts across the country. This leaves communities in the lurch and students potentially needing alternative ways to get to school.
The cancellation of many federal grants and weeks-long impoundment of federal formula funds to schools have left many school districts in budgetary chaos, leading to cancellation or delay of funding for key staffing positions and programs related to academic support, enrichment, and more. Families seeking these experiences or services on their own outside of school will have to pay a premium: the cost of lessons or instructions is up nearly 4 percent relative to last year.
Trump has also threatened funds for after-school programming, first delaying this support and then imposing new conditions on its receipt. While the administration ultimately released the $1.4 billion in held-up funds for after-school and other educational programming in mid-July, it remains to be seen whether the delay and new requirements will cause disruptions in this programming—and whether the administration will further target support for students’ education and enrichment.
Meanwhile, Trump’s budget law creates a new tax credit for private-school vouchers that is expected to overwhelmingly benefit higher-income families who already send their children to private schools. This will do nothing to help the vast majority of families who send their children to public schools and for whom back-to-school costs are rising, while further diverting federal funds away from public schools.
In the United States, 69 percent of children under age 6 have all of their parents in the labor force, meaning that accessible, high-quality, and affordable child care is essential for families. Yet, few families have access to such care—and cancelation of after-school enrichment programs may require parents to make their own child care arrangements. In 2024, the average cost of child care in the United States was $13,128 per year. In many states it is higher depending on the age of children and the type of care they receive. And in nearly every state the cost of child care is significantly higher than the price of rent.
Compared to last year, child care prices have risen by 5.7 percent. Six months into his administration, Trump has failed to offer a concrete solution or make meaningful investments to address soaring child care prices, which have risen by nearly 30 percent since 2020, 7 percentage points faster than the overall inflation rate. Trump’s attacks on immigrants, who make up a significant share of the child care workforce, threaten to drive up child care prices further.
College students are grappling with both higher costs and greater uncertainty as they return to campuses. For example, college textbooks were 12.9 percent more expensive compared to last back-to-school season. Per-person spending on back-to-college essentials is projected to drop about 3 percent overall—and 14 percent for electronics—as many lower-income households are forced to cut back on spending due to tariffs.
While students don’t yet know how much Trump’s economy will affect tuition and fees, which are typically set a full year in advance, all signs point to steeper costs ahead. Trump’s draconian Medicaid and SNAP cuts shift hundreds of billions of dollars in costs onto states, squeezing their finances. This will force many states to cut funding to public colleges and universities, leading to tuition increases. And the law makes it harder for many of the 43 million Americans who hold federal student loan debt to repay their loans, increasing monthly payments for many borrowers in the coming years and imposing new loan limits that will push more students into the riskier, more expensive private loan market. Finally, tuition pressures will also increase in response to the 13 percent drop in enrollment among international students amid Trump’s campaign of intimidation. International students generally pay full tuition prices, enabling colleges to keep costs down for U.S. students. All of this comes as 72 percent of Americans already say it’s gotten harder to pay for college over the past quarter century.
Conclusion
President Trump’s policies—including his erratic, punitive tariffs—are squeezing families’ budgets as they prepare to return to school. Not only has Trump failed to keep his promises to tackle high prices, but his massive budget law will soon drive costs even higher for back-to-school essentials as its cuts to programs that children, families, and college students depend on take hold.
Notes
Tags: inflation, donald trump, tariffs, back to school