The Federal Communications Commission’s vote in late April to restore net neutrality — a national standard that prevents broadband providers from blocking or slowing services, or from establishing “pay-to-play internet fast lanes” — is a win for schools, colleges and libraries, advocates say.
The FCC’s decision to bring back net neutrality follows after the agency, under the Trump administration, abdicated open internet rules and its authority over the internet in 2018. The open internet rules were initially adopted by the FCC and enshrined under Title II of the Communications Act in 2015 under the Obama administration. The push to repeal net neutrality in 2018 stemmed from then-FCC chairman Ajit Pai, who said the rules stifled innovation and prevented broadband investment and expansion by service providers.
The FCC’s reinstatement of net neutrality ensures all students will have equal access to a variety of online educational content, tools and platforms, no matter their school’s location or financial resources, said Keith Krueger, CEO of the Consortium for School Networking. CoSN has been a long-standing supporter for net neutrality.
“By prohibiting broadband providers from throttling or deprioritizing data-intensive applications like video conferencing, streaming educational videos, and virtual/augmented reality, these rules enable schools to harness the full potential of technology to enhance teaching and learning,” Krueger said.
Without net neutrality, it’s possible broadband providers could strike deals that favor certain ed tech companies over others, Krueger said. Additionally, ed tech companies could potentially drive up prices of certain tools sold to schools, because some companies might have faster services. This ultimately could limit schools’ choices of what services they can use and potentially force them to use inferior products, he said.
Because so much information is on the internet, it’s important that all students are able to use high-quality broadband services, said Emily Drabinski, president of the American Library Association. “If we protect net neutrality, we protect equal access to information.”
Throttling internet access can also directly impact schools by restricting students’ abilities to use services they often rely on for completing homework, research or job training, Drabinski said.
Net neutrality’s prohibition of internet service providers from prioritizing commercial services is crucial for schools, she added.
“And so if you can’t afford that commercial content, which is every K-12 public school I’ve encountered, then that limits your access, and it produces the kind of differential access we’re opposed to as librarians,” Drabinski said. “You shouldn’t get more, better information because you have more wealth. Without net neutrality, that’s what you get.”
Krueger and Drabinski also noted how difficult it is to find data that demonstrates the harm caused to schools’ internet access as a result of lacking federal net neutrality standards.
Bridging the digital divide elsewhere
Advocates agree that restoring net neutrality will also help address concerns over the digital divide — the equity gap that greatly shapes students' access to technology and the internet.
At the same time, other efforts to help students secure internet access at home are on shaky ground. In April, federal funding dried up for the $14.2 billion Affordable Connectivity Program, which helped provide broadband services to nearly 23 million households nationwide under the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.
The FCC program specifically benefitted 3.1 million families of students who received free or reduced-price school meals, and a majority of parents enrolled in the Affordable Connectivity Program said they were worried their children would fall behind in school if they lost home internet access, according to consulting firm Benenson Strategy Group.
With the Affordable Connectivity Program’s end, the responsibility to keep students connected to the internet at home is falling on school district leaders’ shoulders. But to make matters more complicated, federal funding is also drying up for the Emergency Connectivity Fund, which districts relied on for purchasing mobile hotspots for students, Krueger said.
CoSN’s annual survey of district ed tech leaders found that more districts are not providing assistance to students to connect to broadband at home, with 31% reporting not doing so in 2024 compared to 19% in 2022. More specifically, the percentage of districts offering hotspots to unconnected students dipped from 69% to 49% between 2022 and 2024.
This signifies a “huge equity problem” for students and schools, Krueger said, especially as more students use the internet outside of school than in the classroom for learning purposes. “If you don’t provide support for those low-income families — which are disproportionately Black and Hispanic — you’re giving an advantage to more wealthy, affluent students who do have access at home.”
To help address this issue, the FCC proposed a rule in November that would allow schools and libraries to use E-Rate funds to purchase Wi-Fi hotspots and off-premises internet services. The proposal is still pending.
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