The subsidised student meal is 140 denars. Students are asking for 200. Education and Science Minister Vesna Janevska says that, going by the inflation rate, an increase of "only seven denars" is due, to 147.

The 2023 law raised the meal from 120 to 140 denars and required the amount to be adjusted for inflation after every fiscal year. The seven denars correspond to the rise in food and non-alcoholic drink prices in 2025, which was 5.2 percent. Overall cost of living went up 4.1 percent last year, while restaurants and hotels got as much as 7.2 percent more expensive. The law, however, doesn't say which index is used - so it is up to the Ministry to explain publicly how it arrived at 147.

The maths has one more line. Food got 2.9 percent more expensive in 2024 and 5.2 percent in 2025. Apply that to 140 denars, and just to keep the same purchasing power, the meal should be around 151.5 denars. Add the price rises in the first seven months of 2026, when food was on average 4.7 percent more expensive than in the same period last year, and the figure heads towards 159. In other words, even at 147 denars a student gets less for a meal than two years ago.

The demand for 200 denars is a different story. That is no longer an inflation adjustment but a decision for the state to pay a bigger share of the real cost of feeding students. The national student body was already asking for 150 denars back in September 2025, citing precisely the legal obligation.

Instead of an answer on the number, the minister offered a new idea: changing the methodology following the example of countries in the region. Students would "not get money but most likely some kind of voucher" with which they would eat at certain restaurants.

Voucher or cash, the substance is the same: how much a hot meal costs today and how much the state is prepared to pay for it. If the formula in the law can't even keep up with food inflation, what exactly will the new methodology fix - the meal, or the number in the budget?