A federal program that has spent nearly 30 years helping schools and libraries afford internet access is under review at the Federal Communications Commission, and educators are bracing for the money to shrink or disappear.
The program, known as E-Rate, was created by Congress in 1996, back when only 14% of schools and libraries could get online. That figure is now close to 100%. E-Rate covers a share of the monthly bills that keep schools connected, drawing from the Universal Service Fund, and it has long enjoyed bipartisan support. So when the FCC announced a full review of it in late June, a lot of people in education were caught off guard.
"By its own data and its own measurement, the program is healthy," said David Thurston, who oversees technology for the 33 school districts inside California's San Bernardino County, a stretch of more than 20,000 square miles running from the edge of Los Angeles to the state's eastern border. The county built the fiber to connect all of it, but the cables are only the start. The bills come every month, tens of thousands of dollars' worth. "There's no doing without," Thurston said. Without the subsidy, districts "are gonna have to pick up the costs." He called them what they are: "ongoing, essentially, utility costs. That's what E-Rate pays for."
An Unusual Reason for the Review
In its notice of proposed rulemaking, the FCC calls for a look at the program "to better protect children when using E-Rate-funded networks, including to limit screen time." FCC Chairman Brendan Carr's statement at the commission's June hearing leaned heavily on the dangers of screen time for children and the research around it.
The move did not come out of nowhere for everyone. The Project 2025 blueprint, assembled by the conservative Heritage Foundation to guide the second Trump administration, singled out federal broadband policy as a place to cut agency spending, and Carr helped write that chapter. The screen-time framing also lands in a moment when states are already acting: since January, Alabama, Tennessee, Utah, and Virginia have passed laws rethinking the role of technology in teaching, with more than 10 other states considering similar steps, and the Los Angeles Unified School District recently approved its own limits on student screen time.
Even Screen-Time Advocates Are Wary
Some of the people who most want to cut children's screen time do not think gutting E-Rate is the way to do it. "We believe there are ways of strengthening school policies to promote more limited and privacy-protecting use of EdTech without taking away critical E-Rate funding," Josh Golin, executive director of the digital-safety nonprofit Fairplay, said in a statement to NPR.
The problem is that schools cannot simply unplug. Districts use the internet to track attendance, monitor bus routes, and administer state-required tests. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, 48 states now have some online component to their exams. Cutting connectivity to cut screen time, in other words, would take out a lot of things that have nothing to do with screen time.
How Far the FCC Can Actually Go
There are limits on what the agency can do. Bob Bocher, a senior fellow with the American Library Association who helped write the original 1996 law, said that because E-Rate is written into the Telecommunications Act, the FCC likely cannot eliminate it outright. The Supreme Court last year also upheld the Universal Service Fund, the mechanism that collects the money, as constitutional.
What the agency can do is change how the program runs, and that is what worries advocates. Bocher's fear is a program made so complicated that schools and libraries walk away on their own. "It's like death by a thousand cuts," he said, "death by a thousand rules and regulations."
Where the Stakes Are Highest
The districts with the most to lose are the ones with the fewest alternatives. The 1990s assumption that competition among providers would drive prices down never fully arrived in rural America. "In rural Alaska, we don't have numerous options," said Patrick Mayer, superintendent of the remote Alaska Gateway School District, where some students reach school by plane in winter. "We have one provider."
His district of just under 400 students spends more than half a million dollars a year to keep its six schools online. That connection is what lets students take dual-enrollment college courses and receive virtual speech and occupational therapy. "It means the difference between having a school in the 21st century," Mayer said, "or a school in the 20th century." Replacing the E-Rate money, he said, would be "very, very difficult," and he cannot see a way to do it without cutting staff or student services.
For now the fight is early. Once the FCC formally publishes its notice, the public gets 60 days to comment, followed by a 30-day reply period and then a full review of the input, a process that can stretch on. Mayer is not waiting. He spent several days in Washington this month meeting with lawmakers about keeping Alaska's students connected. For a story that also runs through screen-time policy, see our report on how Maryland is handling classroom technology.
Sources
NPR: No internet, no screen time? FCC weighs cutting subsidy that lowers school internet bills
Universal Service Administrative Company: E-Rate (Schools and Libraries) Program
