Assistance program
UNIVERSAL SERVICE FUND - SCHOOLS and LIBRARIES
$15.7 Billion committed in FY2020–FY2026
- Agency
- Federal Communications Commission, Federal Communications Commission
- Assistance
- Not Applicable
- CFDA number
- 32.004
- What it does
- The schools and libraries universal service support program, commonly known as the E-Rate program, helps eligible schools and libraries to obtain affordable broadband services, internal connections, and maintenance of internal connections. The E-Rate program was authorized by Congress as part of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 (the Telecommunications Act), and created by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC or Commission) in 1997 to, among other things, enhance, to the extent technically feasible and economically reasonable, access to advanced telecommunications and information services for all public and nonprofit elementary and secondary schools and libraries.
- Who benefits
- Elementary and secondary public and private schools; public, academic, research, and private libraries; consortia of eligible schools and libraries.
- Who applies
- Schools must meet the statutory definition of elementary and secondary schools as defined in 20 U.S.C. § 7801(18) and 20 U.S.C. § 7801(38). Libraries must meet the statutory definition of library or library consortium found in the Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA) under 20 U.S.C. § 9122, and must be eligible for assistance from a state library administrative agency under that Act. In 2021, the Commission modified its definition of library to include Tribal libraries, clarifying that Tribal libraries are eligible for E-Rate support. Schools and libraries may not operate as for-profit businesses. Schools with endowments exceeding $50,000,000 are also not eligible.
- Authorized by
- The E-Rate program was authorized as part of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, and created through rulemaking by the Commission in 1997 to, among other things, enhance, to the extent technically feasible and economically reasonable, access to advanced telecommunications and inf…
Committed by fiscal year
* FY2026 is year-to-date — the fiscal year is still in progress, so its total is still filling in. The striped band and dashed line mark that provisional stretch.
Top recipients
By dollars committed.
How to read these numbers
- Committed through this program
Money committed under this assistance listing (its CFDA program), counted in the year each action happened.
- How it's paid
Most programs pay out one way — a grant, or a direct payment to individuals; the flow bar only appears when a program genuinely mixes types.
- Some recipients aren't itemized
For entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare, the government reports one aggregate instead of naming tens of millions of people, so the recipient roster isn't part of the public record.
- Awards, counted once
An award count is the number of distinct awards with at least one action that year — each counted once, however many times it was amended.
- The colored bars
Every bar on this page splits by how the money moves:
Direct payments