Canyons District schools could lose internet subsidies under FCC review

Canyons School District's 49 schools could lose federal subsidies that help pay for internet service if the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) follows through on a proposal to narrow or cut the E-Rate program.

The FCC is reviewing the roughly $3 billion-a-year program, which provides discounts of 20% to 90% on broadband and telecommunications for more than 100,000 schools and 11,000 libraries nationwide, first reported by Stateline through the Utah News Dispatch. In Utah, 1,076 institutions rely on E-Rate, almost all of them schools.

The agency is accepting public comments through Oct. 13 as it decides whether to craft a formal rule change.

In June 2026, the FCC's rulemaking document said the agency would examine whether the program "should be narrowed or otherwise reoriented" based on how far its connectivity goals have been met. FCC Chairman Brendan Carr said the review would focus on educational outcomes and parental empowerment. The FCC is also asking whether subsidies should be limited to rural areas or single-provider markets and whether student screen-time concerns should factor in.

The program is the fifth-largest stream of federal funding for schools, according to the Schools Superintendents Association (AASA). Schools and libraries received more than $13 billion from E-Rate between 2021 and 2025, according to the Schools, Health, and Libraries Broadband Coalition, as reported by Education Week.

What E-Rate pays for in schools like Canyons

Internet access in modern schools goes well beyond instruction. Stacy Hawthorne, executive director of the EdTech Leaders Alliance, told a Sept. 9 AASA virtual town hall that broadband powers bus GPS routing, security cameras, visitor-management systems that scan driver's licenses against offender registries, building ventilation and digitized attendance and meal records.

"E-rate doesn't fund software devices. It funds the pipe into the building, the wiring inside the building, the layer that every one of those systems already assumes just exists," Hawthorne said at the town hall, as reported by GovTech.

More than 600 participants registered for that session. Without the same level of funding, schools could face higher internet costs, less support for rural and high-cost communities and greater difficulty upgrading building infrastructure, the AASA said.

Canyons District serves 32,688 students across 49 campuses for the 2026-27 school year. No public figure is available for how much E-Rate money the district receives annually. For comparison, LaTonya M. Goffney, superintendent of the Aldine Independent School District in Texas, told the same town hall her district received $11 million in E-Rate support over five years.

Legal questions and recent history

Congress created E-Rate in 1996, when only 14% of K-12 classrooms had internet access. The FCC has some authority to change how the program is administered without congressional approval, but whether the agency can eliminate a congressionally authorized program altogether is an unsettled legal question.

The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the program in a 6-3 decision in 2025 after a 2023 legal challenge, according to the Los Angeles Times. A Government Accountability Office report in December 2025 found E-Rate was the only program out of five evaluated that followed all nine recommended practices for preventing fraud, waste and abuse, the Times also reported.

Under Carr's leadership, the FCC has already removed school bus Wi-Fi and internet hotspots from the program's eligible services list, according to Education Week. The FCC said in July 2026 that the current application cycle would not be immediately affected.

That matters now.