Now that schools everywhere are back in full swing, we’ve posted a new featured data story on our Federal Priorities Database. This one looks at two datasets: school lunch participation and school lunch expenditures. Over the years, the number of students eating school lunch has increased, reaching 31,724,421 for the school year ending in 2010. These lunches were subsidized by the National School Lunch Program (NSLP). Federal assistance for this program, which totaled $9.8 billion In FY 2009, comes in the form of cash reimbursements and “entitlement foods” from the USDA.