FCC Review of School Internet Subsidy Threatens Classroom Connectivity

The Federal Communications Commission has launched a sweeping review of the E-Rate program — a federal subsidy that provides approximately $3 billion annually to help schools and libraries afford internet access — raising the possibility of significant cuts or restructuring that educators warn could leave millions of students without reliable classroom connectivity. The review, formalized through a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking voted on June 25, 2026, includes 42 distinct proposals that range from limiting funding for wealthier districts to potentially sunsetting the 30-year-old program entirely, as NPR reported.

What Is E-Rate and Why Does It Matter?

Created by Congress in the Telecommunications Act of 1996, the E-Rate program provides discounts of 20% to 90% on internet access and internal connectivity services for over 100,000 schools and roughly 11,000 libraries across the United States. When the program was established, only 14% of schools and libraries had internet access; that figure now stands at nearly 100%. The program is funded through the Universal Service Fund, which the Supreme Court ruled constitutional in 2025.

For many rural and low-income districts, E-Rate is not a luxury — it is a lifeline. David Thurston, technology director for San Bernardino County Schools in California, told NPR that districts in his county face tens of thousands of dollars in monthly internet costs. “There’s no doing without,” he said. “School districts are gonna have to pick up the costs.”

Chairman Carr’s Rationale: Screen Time and Academic Performance

FCC Chairman Brendan Carr, a Republican appointed by President Trump, has framed the review around concerns about excessive screen time in schools and declining academic performance. Carr cited a 2026 Surgeon General’s advisory on screen time harms and record-low math and reading scores on the Nation’s Report Card as justification for the review.

“We’re now starting to see research pour in that is associating excessive screen time in schools and for students with exceptionally poor academic outcomes,” Carr said in a June 4 statement. He argued that parents lose oversight when children are at school: “I think there’s many, many parents that do not have insight into what their kids are doing when they’re spending hours with screens in schools.”

The NPRM includes proposals to require schools to let parents opt children out of screen-based instruction and to impose network-level filtering and screen-time limits on E-Rate-funded networks.

The Project 2025 Connection

Critics note that Carr helped author the broadband chapter of Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation’s conservative blueprint for the second Trump administration, which singled out federal broadband policy as a target for cutting agency spending. President Trump, who once claimed ignorance of Project 2025, has since implemented many of its policies, according to NPR.

What the Proposals Would Do

The FCC’s Notice of Proposed Rulemaking contains 27 questions for comment and 15 concrete proposals. Among the most significant:

• Whether to “limit or sunset” the E-Rate program entirely
• Whether to phase out funding for wealthier districts
• Whether to limit support to rural or single-provider areas
• Whether to remove or restrict Head Start and pre-K students from eligibility
• Whether to extend CIPA filtering requirements to all devices on school networks, including personal devices
• New consultant registration and oversight rules that could add administrative burdens

’Death by a Thousand Cuts’

Legal experts note that the FCC likely cannot fully eliminate E-Rate without congressional action, since the program is written into the Telecommunications Act. However, the FCC could make the program so administratively burdensome that schools and libraries are effectively driven away.

Bob Bocher, a senior fellow with the American Library Association who helped write the original 1996 law, described the approach as “death by a thousand cuts, death by a thousand rules and regulations.”

Joey Wender, executive director of the SHLB Coalition, called the proposal “an existential threat to schools and libraries around the country,” as Education Week reported.

The Rural Impact

Rural schools would be hit hardest. Patrick Mayer, superintendent of the Alaska Gateway School District — where some students rely on planes to get to school in winter — told NPR his district of just under 400 students spends more than half a million dollars per year on internet access with only one provider available.

“It means the difference between having a school in the 21st century, or a school in the 20th century,” Mayer said. “To backfill that funding would be very, very difficult.”

The connectivity allows his students to take dual-enrollment courses online with a local college and access virtual speech and occupational therapy — services that would be threatened if E-Rate funding is cut.

A Growing Screen Time Movement

The FCC’s review comes amid a broader bipartisan push to limit children’s screen time. Since January 2026, states including Alabama, Tennessee, Utah, and Virginia have passed legislation reevaluating technology’s role in schools. The Los Angeles Unified School District, the second-largest in the country, recently approved a policy to limit screen time for its students, as LAist reported.

However, some advocates for limiting screen time say cutting E-Rate funding is the wrong approach. Josh Golin, executive director of Fairplay, a nonprofit focused on digital safety for kids, told NPR: “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.”

What’s Next

The public comment period will open once the FCC officially publishes notice of its planned review in the Federal Register. The public will have 60 days to comment, followed by a 30-day reply comment period, after which the FCC will review all input. The process could take months, but educators and advocates are already mobilizing.

Mayer spent several days in Washington, D.C., this month meeting with legislators about the importance of keeping Alaska’s students connected. Advocacy groups including AASA, the SHLB Coalition, and the American Library Association are coordinating both FCC comment filings and congressional outreach.

Noelle Ellerson Ng, chief advocacy officer at AASA, summed up the tension at the heart of the debate: “Screen time, at its core, is a curriculum decision. E-rate is a connectivity program. The FCC is not the agency tasked with answering questions about education, education pedagogy, and curriculum.”

The outcome of this proceeding will have profound implications for millions of students — particularly those in rural and low-income communities who depend most heavily on E-Rate-supported internet access.