The termination of federal grants supporting increased internet access across the country is reigniting concerns about the longstanding divide between students who can access digital tools at home and those who can’t.
The Federal Digital Equity Grants program was axed this month after President Donald Trump called the Biden-era law that created the funding “woke handouts” in a social media post.
The grants were a part of Former President Joe Biden’s $1 trillion infrastructure bill in 2021, which received bipartisan support and included significant investments in internet infrastructure, among other projects.
That effort was to include around $42 billion for “broadband deployment grants” to bring internet into low-connectivity areas and devote roughly $14 billion to helping families in low-income areas connect to broadband, Education Week reported at the time.
There was also initially around $2.75 billion earmarked for “digital equity” — dollars that lawmakers said could be spent on anything from laptops for students to digital literacy classes for senior citizens.
As a result of the Trump administration’s efforts to repeal the legislation, work that was either planned or just beginning in as many as 20 states is stalled.
In Illinois, for example, the state’s $23.7 million digital equity grant would have supported improving the digital infrastructure for 10 million people in rural areas and poorer communities, and increasing access for veterans and senior citizens, a group of congressional and state leaders, including Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker, said in a statement.
For companies selling digital tools to schools, the loss of these projects could bring new challenges to an already uncertain market.
Administrators may lean more heavily on vendors or nonprofit partners to close the digital gaps in their areas when it comes to expanding connectivity, providing devices, and offering robust offline functionality, said Julia Fallon, executive director of the State Educational Technology Directors Association.
It could also have a general cooling effect on school districts’ interest in digital tools if the students they serve are located in low-connectivity areas.
“When access is still a barrier, interest in adopting new digital tools can decline, either because of the logistical challenges or the perception that students won’t be able to benefit equitably,” Fallon said in an email. “That kind of disillusionment could stall momentum at a time when continued investment is critical.”
SETDA is advocating for the grants to be reinstated, calling on federal and state leaders to “stay the course,” and arguing that having access to the internet is essential for learning, workforce readiness, and civic participation.
The quality of in-school internet access has risen over time, bolstered in part by the $4 billion federal E-rate program, which subsidizes telephone, internet, and related projects for public and private schools.
In its latest nationwide report on school connectivity, Connect K-12, a tool that aggregates E-rate data, found that three-quarters of school districts are reaching the national benchmark for internet connectivity in 2023, while only around half of districts could say the same three years earlier.
Getting all students reliable internet access outside of school — which some proponents hoped the digital equity grants would help work toward — has remained a challenge.
The so-called digital divide especially came into focus during the COVID-19 pandemic, when some communities were more prepared than others to transition to learning entirely online.
“Equitable access to technology is not a partisan issue — it is a public good,” SETDA said in a statement, responding to the cut grants. “When all individuals have the tools, infrastructure, and skills to fully participate in modern society, everyone benefits.”
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States including Connecticut, Illinois, Nevada, Alaska, Maine, Vermont, New Jersey, North Carolina, and North Dakota had grant-backed projects that will be affected, SETDA reports.
Trump didn’t offer a basis for his criticism of the program or expand on what about the work was cause for concern in his post on May 8.
In the same post, he promised to save taxpayers “billions,” but it is unclear what savings would actually come to taxpayers by ending the program.
Government web pages that detailed the projects have since been removed. The National Telecommunications and Information Administration — the executive branch agency that advises the president on telecommunications and technology policy — previously oversaw the grants. But the agency did not respond to EdWeek Market Brief’s request for comment on Thursday, which included a question about the plans for any saved money.
The White House press office answered EdWeek Market Brief‘s questions about the digital equity grants with a short email statement about an entirely different topic.
This grant termination is part of a wave of federal grant and program cancellations announced over the last few months by the Trump administration, which have targeted the U.S. Department of Education and many other agencies.
Trump has made it clear he will target programs — including education programs — labeled as promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion, an approach he generally believes unfairly puts an emphasis on race in distributing money and resources.
The digital equity act language, however, rarely mentions race, and does not make it a central factor in the distribution of funds.