The short answer
- Each budget is a five-year, pre-discount amount for internal connections, managed internal broadband services and basic maintenance.
- Budgets are set for the whole district or library system, which can spread them across its sites as it chooses.
- The amounts were adjusted for inflation once, at the start of the cycle, and stay the same from FY2026 to FY2030.
The amounts
| Amount | FY2021 to FY2025 | FY2026 to FY2030 |
|---|---|---|
| Schools, per student | $167.00 | $201.57 |
| Libraries, per square foot | $4.50 | $5.43 |
| Floor, schools and libraries | $25,000 | $30,175 |
| Floor, Tribal libraries | $55,000 | $66,385 |
Source: USAC, Category Two budgets.
How a budget is worked out
For a school district, multiply the total number of students by $201.57. Then multiply the number of schools by $30,175. The budget is whichever is larger. USAC's own examples:
- A district with 12 schools and 2,000 students: 2,000 × $201.57 = $403,140.
- A district with 11 schools and fewer than 1,647 students gets the floor: 11 × $30,175 = $331,925.
- A school with fewer than 150 students gets the $30,175 floor (149 students would come to $30,033.93).
- A library with less than 5,558 square feet gets the floor (5,557 square feet would come to $30,174.51).
Applicants confirm their student counts or square footage in their first year of Category 2 funding in the cycle, and the budget is then set for the five years. If enrollment or square footage changes, an applicant may ask USAC to recalculate. Funding year 2027 is the first year a replacement budget can be requested.
District-wide budgets
Budgets are set at the district or library system level, not school by school. A district can spend its budget on whichever of its schools it chooses. A district or system with 10 or fewer sites may also calculate the budget site by site and add the results.
For a provider, this means a small school in a big district may have more budget behind it than its own enrollment suggests, and a big school may have less, if the district has already spent elsewhere.
Discounts
The budget is pre-discount. E-Rate pays the applicant's discount rate on eligible costs, and the applicant pays the rest. Discounts depend on the share of students eligible for the National School Lunch Program and on whether the district is urban or rural, and Category 2 discounts top out at 85%.
| Students eligible for NSLP | Urban | Rural |
|---|---|---|
| Under 1% | 20% | 25% |
| 1% to 19% | 40% | 50% |
| 20% to 34% | 50% | 60% |
| 35% to 49% | 60% | 70% |
| 50% to 74% | 80% | 80% |
| 75% to 100% | 85% (Category 2) | 85% (Category 2) |
Category 1 reaches 90% in the top band, and Tribal libraries in the top band get 90% for Category 2 from FY2024. Sources: USAC discount matrix; USAC, calculating discounts.
So on a $100,000 pre-discount project at an 80% discount, E-Rate pays $80,000, the district pays $20,000, and the full $100,000 counts against the district's budget.
Seeing what's left
What's left is the five-year budget minus the pre-discount Category 2 dollars already requested in the cycle. Everything you need is public:
- The budget. Student counts come from the applicant's Form 471 filings and USAC's entity data.
- What's been drawn. Category 2 funding requests since FY2026, with their pre-discount amounts and status, are in USAC's FRN Status data.
- Our free lookup. The C2 budget lookup does this math for any district, school or library from USAC Open Data.
- USAC's own tool. The C2 Budget Tool on Open Data shows budgets by entity; USAC says it will be updated with FY2026 to FY2030 data.
Count pending requests as well as funded ones. A district with a large request under review may have far less room than its funded total suggests.
C2 budget in Workbench
E-Rate Workbench works out each district's remaining Category 2 budget from its student count and what it has already drawn this cycle, funded and pending, and shows it on every matching Form 470. When the budget is spent, you see it before you write a quote. When a district hasn't filed in the cycle yet, Workbench says the figure is an estimate.
Questions providers ask
How much is the E-Rate Category 2 budget per student?
$201.57 per student for FY2026 to FY2030, up from $167.00 in FY2021 to FY2025, with a floor of $30,175 per school.
Is the Category 2 budget per school or per district?
Per district (or library system). The district can spend it across its schools as it chooses.
Do the amounts change every year?
No. They were adjusted for inflation once, before the cycle began, and apply to all five years.
Is the budget before or after the discount?
Before. The full pre-discount cost of each Category 2 request counts against the budget, though E-Rate only pays the discounted share.