School leaders nationwide are urging the Federal Communications Commission to preserve the federal E-rate program. The agency is considering overhauling or even discontinuing the 30-year-old program that offers discounted internet service rates for schools and libraries.
On Tuesday, the public comment period closed for an FCC proposed rule that asks if E-rate policy changes are necessary given rampant concerns over screen time in schools. The FCC proposal further questions if E-rate “should be limited or sunset” because of the "extensive connectivity" that exists today.
Among the several thousand comments, many district leaders said in public comments that eliminating the E-rate program would only shift school costs for broadband services and infrastructure to local taxpayers and strain districts’ increasingly tight budgets.
For instance, Albuquerque Public Schools — New Mexico’s largest school district — “is under significant financial pressure” from declining enrollment that has led to a $40 million drop in state funding for fiscal year 2027 and a looming $16.1 million budget deficit, said Brian Thompson, the district’s executive director of technology infrastructure and operations, in a comment on the FCC rule.
The district's enrollment has fallen by 20,000 students since 2018, Thompson wrote, leading the school system to consider ways to “right-size” its schools, programs and facilities.
Since the E-rate program launched in the ‘90s, the district has received $129 million in program funds, Thompson said.
“Eliminating E-Rate would not eliminate connectivity costs,” he said. “It would shift them to an already constrained education budget, where they would compete with teachers, instructional programs, student services, safety, and facilities.”
The E-rate program accounted for $10.5 billion in federal dollars provided to school districts from 2021 to 2025, according to an August data analysis by AASA, The School Superintendents Association, the Association of Educational Service Agencies and the Pennsylvania Digital Trust Hub. That makes E-rate the fifth-largest stream of federal funds that schools receive, the analysis said.
E-rate funds to Virginia’s Fairfax County Public Schools, for instance, have averaged $1.79 million a year over the past decade, the district said in its public comment. The school system stressed that broadband services go beyond being used for optional instructional support or a classroom teaching tool.
“Just as a school cannot open its doors without power or water, a modern facility cannot operate safely or legally without functional network infrastructure,” Fairfax County Public Schools said. “Attendance systems, emergency communications, state testing compliance, and environmental controls are all network dependent.”
Michelle Bourgeois, chief technology officer at Colorado’s St. Vrain Valley Schools, echoed that comment, saying that E-rate’s role in school connectivity is not simply about screen time or student devices, “because a school network is part of the fabric of the school itself.”
St. Vrain Valley Schools has received about $18.2 million in E-rate funds since 1998, according to Bourgeois.
Districts, educators and local communities, she said, should continue to examine policies on how and when technology is used for instruction.
“But reducing student screen time does not eliminate the need for the network,” Bourgeois said. “A student may not be using a device at all while a school is relying on its network for a door access system, a security camera, a visitor check-in system, a fire safety system, communications, or other essential operations.”
Concerns over E-rate’s cost and impact on students
Some public commenters, however, said changes might be warranted for the E-rate program.
Despite E-rate spending of billions of dollars to connect schools to broadband, the FCC has never demonstrated why the program is necessary for schools or how it has improved educational outcomes, said Daniel Lyons, a professor and associate dean at Boston College Law School.
Lyons also said concerns linking students’ screen time to mental health challenges and declining test scores is a good reason to question whether connectivity improves education.
Because of this, Lyons said, the FCC should adopt an outcomes-based performance goal and metric system to understand whether the program’s funding boosts student achievement. When those results are available, the commission can then “right-size” E-rate and share its findings with Congress, he said.
Those who supported the FCC’s E-rate review also pointed to the growing costs put on consumers from the Universal Service Fund — the revenue stream for E-rate. Those funds come from a fee on consumers’ telecommunication bills.
Thomas Schatz, president of the nonprofit Citizens Against Government Waste, suggested that the FCC eliminate duplicative broadband services where other federal funding streams are available, such as the $42.45 billion Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment program.
The BEAD program, which is managed by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, provides funds to states to create and expand broadband infrastructure in unserved and underserved areas nationwide.
