E-rate funding commitments for schools and libraries have reached $2 billion for funding year 2018. USAC reached this milestone on December 7, 2018. This was a two week improvement over last year, in which USAC reached the $2 billion mark on December 22, 2017. The chart below illustrates the path to $2 billion in funding commitments for the past five funding years. The fastest was funding year 2015, the last year before the EPC system was implemented.
As of December 7, 2018, there were 21,005 applicants who had been awarded discounts for the current funding year. Leading the pack were 11,788 school districts who were awarded a combined total of $1,519,690,303. This represents 74% of the funds requested by schools and libraries.
The consortium-type of applicant is the group with the largest amount of funding still pending. There are 63 consortia with applications totaling $256,776,103 that are still under review. This corresponds to 44% of the consortium requests. The majority of this funding is for state and regional networks.
