Report on School Connectivity for E-Rate Funding Year 2021

Connected Nation’s “Connect K-12” program has released its report on US school connectivity for E-rate Funding Year 2021, which includes findings on the nation’s progress toward meeting the Federal Communication Commission’s bandwidth goal of 1 Mbps per student. Connect K-12 aggregates, analyzes, and visualizes federal E-rate program data at the district and state levels. Key takeaways from the report include:

• 59 percent of school districts nationwide now meet or exceed the 1 Mbps per student.
• That represents a 25 percent increase from the number of districts that were meeting the goal in 2020.
• The national median bandwidth per student has risen above 1 Mbps for the first time to 1.25 Mbps.
• The median cost per megabit has decreased from $7.00 in 2015 to $1.39 today.
• Unfortunately, 1,703 school districts across the U.S. are still paying more than $5 per megabit, and 746 districts are paying more than $10 per megabit.