Education Policy, Business and Technology

E-rate Update Helping Add Internet, But Not Enough

THE Journal: The biggest allotment of E-rate requests in applications for fiscal year 2016 was dedicated to data and internet service. More than $2.3 billion focused on that type of funding help, with the E-rate portion totaling $1.8 billion and the applicant portion covering $559 million. Nothing else came close. Requests related to voice services reached $897 million; switches and routers extended to $743 million; and on-campus wi-fi was $412 million.

Most applicants applied for Category 2 funding in FY2016. Fifty seven percent sought E-rate discounts to cover on-campus broadband connectivity, either in the form of internal connections or managed internal broadband services. The average Category 2 spending per site dipped from fiscal year 2015 to fiscal year 2016. Whereas the average school spending in 2015 was $37,911, that had dropped to $31,032 in 2016. During the same period, the portion of cost expected to come from the applicant rose, from 25 percent in 2015 to 29 percent in 2016.

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