Maximizing K-12 Fiber Connectivity Through E-Rate: An Overview

Abstract

The federal E-rate program provides up to $3.9 billion annually to subsidize the provision of high-speed Internet access to schools and libraries. Recent revisions to the program greatly expand the options for how such service can be provisioned. Notably, school districts can now seek reimbursement for the costs of building their own fiber optic networks. What’s more, municipalities and counties can inexpensively add more fiber to such networks to serve wider community needs. This new toolkit released by the Berkman Center in partnership with CoSN (the Consortium for School Networking), provides school system leaders the guidance to understand and leverage this newly expanded program. The report, Maximizing K-12 Fiber Connectivity Through E-Rate: An Overview comes as schools are feeling a bandwidth crunch. A recent CoSN survey revealed that 68 percent of district technology officers believe their school systems do not have the bandwidth to meet their district’s connectivity demands in the next 18 months.