FCC Chairman Brendan Carr announced a full review of the E-Rate program in late June, prompting educators and advocates to brace for potential cuts to a subsidy that helps schools and libraries pay internet bills.
Congress created the E-Rate program in 1996 to help many public schools and libraries and some private schools pay monthly internet bills, and the initiative coincided with internet access rising from 14% of schools and libraries then to near 100%.
The notice of proposed rulemaking calls for a review "to better protect children when using E-Rate-funded networks, including to limit screen time," and Carr's prepared statement at the commission's June hearing focused heavily on the dangers of screen time for kids and the growing body of research around it; the Project 2025 blueprint singled out federal broadband policy for cuts and Carr helped write that chapter of the document compiled by the Heritage Foundation to guide a second Trump administration.
David Thurston, who oversees technology for the 33 school districts in California's San Bernardino County, which covers more than 20,000 square miles, said his county built the infrastructure to bring internet across the region but still faces "ongoing, essentially, utility costs" that E-Rate pays for and that for San Bernardino districts those costs are "tens of thousands of dollars every month."
Patrick Mayer, superintendent for the remote Alaska Gateway School District, said his district has just under 400 students and spends more than $500,000 per year to ensure internet at its six schools, allowing students to take dual enrollment courses online and access virtual speech and occupational therapy; he said, "It means the difference between having a school in the 21st century, or a school in the 20th century."
Since January, states including Alabama, Tennessee, Utah and Virginia have passed laws that call for reevaluating technology's role in teaching and testing, more than 10 other states are considering similar restrictions, and Josh Grolin, executive director at Fairplay, said, "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."
Bob Bocher, a senior fellow with the American Library Association, said because the program is written into the Telecommunications Act of 1996 the FCC likely cannot fully eliminate it, and he warned the agency could make the program so onerous it "drives schools and libraries away by design," calling that potential outcome "death by a thousand cuts" and "death by a thousand rules and regulations."
Once the FCC officially publishes its notice of the planned review the public can comment for 60 days, followed by a 30-day reply comment period and a full agency review of that input, a process advocates said can take a long time and that they are already trying to draw attention to.