What is the Homework Gap?

Technology has become a larger part of education over the past few decades, a growing divide has developed between students who have tools at home and those who do not. This issue, known as the homework gap, refers to the challenges students face when they cannot complete schoolwork at home due to a lack of internet access or devices. While the term became common in the early 2000s, the problem began in the 1990s when computers and internet use became more common in schools and households. For many students and families in rural and low-income areas, this issue introduced new obstacles to staying on track academically. As digital tools become a routine part of education, the homework gap remains a significant challenge. Its long-standing roots continue to affect students’ learning opportunities today.

How Did the COVID-19 Pandemic Expose the Homework Gap?

The COVID-19 pandemic renewed attention to the homework gap.  As schools transitioned to remote learning, students needed reliable internet and personal devices to participate in virtual lessons and complete assignments. Many families share a single device among several children. Others may rely on slow or unreliable connections that limit access to school materials. In 2020, the Pew Research Center estimated that about 15 million K-12 students in the U.S. lacked either a computer or high-speed internet at home. A 2023 study found that one in three Latino, Black, and Native American students were more likely to face these barriers to access.

Even after the return to in-person learning, digital access remains a key part of students’ academic success. Teachers now regularly assign online homework, post lessons through digital platforms, and communicate with families though internet based tools. This means that students without dependable internet or devices at home remain at a disadvantage, even when learning takes place inside the classroom. 

Rural communities are especially affected. The Federal Communications Commission(FCC) reports that about 14.5 million Americans, mostly in rural areas, still lack access to high-speed broadband. A 2024 study found that students in rural areas are nearly 20% less likely to have internet access at home than their urban peers. Some students must travel to public libraries, restaurants, or  parking lots to connect to Wi-Fi and complete their assignments

A History of Homework Gap Legislation

Over time, many policies governing classroom technology and internet use have been introduced in an effort to reduce the homework gap. These programs can be driven by federal grants, state-level deployment programs, or local infrastructure efforts. Policies addressing the digital divide tended to focus on improving resource access for school districts.  

Brief Timeline

1996: President Clinton signed the Telecommunications Act. The Telecommunications Act evolved into the E-rate hotspot program over time. 

2015: The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) provides more digital access in the classroom through technology grants.

2021: The Eliminate the Digital Divide Act provides funding to states and districts to expand access to broadband service in unserved areas. The Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) Program  aims to upgrade “internet infrastructure in unserved or underserved areas.” 

2024: The “Internet for All” act expands funding to regions in Georgia, Iowa, Minnesota, and South Carolina. 

2024: The National Education Tech Plan (NETP) focused on conducting assessments to determine the distribution of necessary educational resources and encouraged students to use technology in a non-passive manner.  

2025: E-rate hotspot program restricted

President Clinton signed the Telecommunications Act to provide access to telecommunications and internet services for schools, especially “those in rural and economically disadvantaged areas.” The Telecommunications Act evolved into the E-rate hotspot program. Until September 30th, 2025, the program allowed schools to request discounts on technology “ranging from 20 percent to 90 percent of the costs of eligible services and equipment” depending on urbanicity and poverty level of the district. 

This program, however, faced criticism from Republicans. Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX), for example, believed the E-rate hotspot program used too many taxpayer resources, failed to regulate what students could access online, and did not give their parents control over this internet access.  Previously enrolled students’ school districts now receive less funding and attention after the September 2025 cut. However, since the Telecommunications Act worked alongside the 2021 Eliminate the Digital Divide Act, districts can still receive funding to expand “broadband service in underserved areas,” although this funding is no longer district-specific. 

Policies Addressing Schools and School Districts

The 2015 Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) and the 2024 National Education Tech Plan (NETP) both aim to improve the long-term success of K-12 students by providing increased technological resources to students and outline provisions to reduce the digital divide.  

2015: The bipartisan ESSA establishes higher academic benchmarks in English, math, and science. The act allows districts to provide more digital access in the classroom by receiving “formula-based grants to support activities related to…the effective use of technology.”   

2024: The NETP focused on conducting assessments to determine the distribution of necessary educational resources. The NETP ensures students “create, design, build, explore, and collaborate” in the classroom. It encourages students to use technology in a non-passive manner.  Lastly, through government and district collaboration, the NETP works to “help students access…hands-on and work-based learning experiences.”  

. They also outline provisions to reduce the digital divide. Both the ESSA and NETP leave decisions pertaining to the specific needs of districts to states and municipalities. Each district decides what policies and resources are best for its students and how to improve classroom success for those students.   

Critics argue these policies do not adequately address systemic societal problems. In 2019, Vice President of the National Education Association Becky Pringle said policies like the ESSA cannot bring significant change if “we don’t take on racial justice” to “ensure all students get what they need.” Despite the positive intentions to make change through policy, the homework gap and digital divide may be caused by larger resource problems pertaining to race and economic status. 

How Is the Government Expanding Broadband Access in Rural Areas?

In addition to policies addressing schools and school districts, bills to increase internet and broadband access for rural areas to help close the digital divide and homework gap have also been passed.

2021: The Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) Program appropriated $42.45 billion dollars from Congress for broadband, infrastructure installation, internet-capable devices, and other necessary technologies for rural areas.  

2024: The “Internet for All” act provided Georgia, Iowa, Minnesota, and South Carolina with additional funding from the BEAD Program to expand internet access to their more remote regions.  

Both policies are steps towards increasing technology and internet access to more remote American communities. The BEAD Program appropriated $42.45 billion dollars from Congress for broadband, infrastructure installation, internet-capable devices, and other necessary technologies for rural areas.Broadband refers to high-speed internet access, including wireless and satellite transmissions.The BEAD program aims to upgrade “internet infrastructure in unserved or underserved areas.” The Internet for All act specifically reflects open communication between states and the federal government to increase funding for broadband, improve information and technology access, and work towards equal opportunities for residents and students alike, regardless of location. 

Today, 22.3% of the U.S.’s rural population lacks broadband access, increasing the digital divide and homework gap. As technology evolves and time progresses, policies addressing the homework gap have shifted away from providing resources based on school success benchmarks and moved toward providing broad grants for tech infrastructure in rural areas. Both inside and outside the classroom, the policies designed to bridge these divides must adapt as well.

What Are the Benefits of Digital Divide Legislation?

Eliminate the Digital Divide Act 

The Eliminate the Digital Divide Act illustrates the long-term benefits of a sustained federal commitment to broadband equity. It offers a systemic pathway to close the digital divide. Through the bill, the FCC provides funding to states to extend broadband service to unserved areas. This infrastructure-focused approach is structurally different from many past efforts. 

Supporters of the bill argue that S. 922 would create a $10 billion state broadband program under which funds are allocated based on each state’s number of unserved individuals. Currently, internet service providers( ISP)  bid against one another to provide the internet required service at the lowest government subsidy through auction-based or lowest-bid mechanisms. The government acts as the buyer, and the lowest bid wins the right to serve a specific geographic area with a set standard of service, which has “disadvantaged small providers and high-cost areas where it is more expensive to build out broadband infrastructure.” 

The act would reserve a $1 billion high-cost set-aside for states where building broadband infrastructure is more expensive. This ensures that rural, mountainous, or otherwise hard-to-reach communities receive equitable access to funding. S. 922’s design aims to correct structural market failures, particularly the tendency of private ISPs to avoid deploying broadband in high-cost or sparsely populated areas because it is not profitable.  

E-Rate Hotspot Program

The E-Rate Hotspot Program allowed eligible schools and libraries to lend Wi-Fi hotspots and mobile wireless Internet services for off-campus (home or remote) use. The program offers immediate benefits for educational equity and academic success by bridging the homework gap.  This ensures that low-income, rural, and other underserved students remain connected.

E-Rate directly provided internet access to students who otherwise would lack a reliable connection at home by enabling schools and libraries to lend hotspots. After an expansion of the program in 2024,  off-premises use of Wi-Fi hotspots and services by “students, school staff, and library patrons” became eligible for E-Rate support.  Supporters of the expansion argue that learning and homework increasingly take place outside school buildings, and recognizing that is a necessary modernization. One coalition of educators and school administrators explained, with the sunsetting of pandemic-era support programs, expanding E-Rate hotspot support “will allow our nation’s schools and libraries to better ensure our 24-hour learners have 24-7 access to broadband.” Evenings, on weekends, and outside regular school hours are precisely when students may need the internet for assignments, research, or remote learning.

Further, rural broadband plays a vital role in expanding high-speed broadband internet access across underserved communities and remote regions. According to a survey conducted by the Pew Research Center, low and middle-income households were more likely to report that it was “very or somewhat difficult for them to help their children use technology or the internet as an educational tool.” In rural communities, about 40% of residents reported that they have had “at least some difficulty, compared with 23% of suburban residents.”

Lastly, low-income communities deeply benefit from broadband programs. According to the same survey, about a quarter of lower-income families whose children’s schools closed during the COVID-19 pandemic “had to use public Wi-Fi because they did not have a reliable internet connection at home” and reported that their child was “unable to complete their schoolwork because they did not have computer access at home.”Nearly half of the low-income families polled reported that their child struggled with one of the three of the survey’s challenges to learning. Ultimately, this expansion ensures that children and families with less access are not academically left behind in the digital age.

What Are the Limitations and Concerns About These Policies?

One major critique of digital divide legislation is its narrow focus on connectivity for low-income families, especially in the Eliminate the Digital Divide Act. Critics argue the Act has little focus on making internet access inexpensive or providing the knowledge for families to use the benefits effectively. Studies found that “access to technology alone does not guarantee academic success.” Rather, “the ability to use [technology] correctly” is what truly determines the value of the resources in the student’s academics. The means to teach low-income families digital literacy skills is much more resource-intensive than for high-income families. Funding for schools in these areas is often a challenge, even if they receive the technology to face the digital divide. 

Critics argue the E-Rate Hotspot Program could increase reliance on technology and screen time. A study found that low-income parents reported their students spent almost double the amount of time in front of a television or computer screen compared to their high-income counterparts.  Critics argue that increased internet access could then translate to underdevelopment for low-income students, since excessive technology use is linked to poor social skills and behaviors.  The findings point to a lack of parental intervention and guidance towards screens. In response to varying parental guidance, some school systems will impose regulations of their own on all school-sponsored technology. However, school systems can have extreme difficulty with too much or too little regulation. Students could bypass the rules set by the schools to access inappropriate content.  

A primary struggle for low-income school districts is to fulfill the curriculum and staffing needs to effectively implement the educational products. So, there is little focus on technical assistance to ensure that students and teachers are equipped to use technology effectively. Communities and administrations play key roles in enforcing these bills to promote tech availability to students, especially those in underserved communities. Without consistent enforcement, adequate teacher and staff training, and infrastructural delays, these bills fall short of creating long-term progress towards removing the digital divide in and out of the classroom.

Expenses are another argument against these policies. Funding for hotspot installation on buses and other remote locations were halted in many places after an FCC decision cited financial strain from the program. The E-Rate Hotspot program comes in at about 3.9 billion dollars, depending on the demand of the particular year. Digital equity programs established through the Eliminate the Digital Divide Act came to about 2.75 billion dollars. Rough terrain and low population densities in rural areas create logistical challenges for ISPs. The extreme expense of connectivity slowed the implementation of these policies in rural areas. 

Both policies cost the government immense amounts of money and time, which has taken away from other policy areas that are already underfunded. Growing issues like public health, Social Security benefits, and climate change are some examples that could use this extensive funding for the future of our world. Whilst the Homework Gap and Digital Divide are not amongst the top spending categories of the U.S. government, there are certainly improvements that could be made to optimize spending and policy execution.

What Still Needs to Be Done to Close the Homework Gap?

Policies like the E-Rate Hotspot Program and Digital Divide Act made notable strides towards reducing the homework gap. Work still needs to be done. Addressing digital access alone is not enough to ensure long-term educational equity. Educational gaps, such as the homework gap, reveal that there are structural issues when it comes to economic, geographic, and racial disparities in digital literacy and education. Increased attention to these issues could allow policymakers to better guide policy, closing gaps in academic and technological access and outcomes.

Policies designed to address the Homework Gap and the broader digital divide reveal a difficult balance between expanding access to digital tools and confronting structural inequities. Programs such as the E-Rate Hotspot Program, the Eliminate the Digital Divide Act (S.922), and major rural broadband initiatives have made progress, but their benefits and drawbacks highlight the persistent challenges in ensuring digital access for all.

These policies advance educational equity by providing more students with reliable broadband and internet capable devices. For instance, the E-Rate Hotspot Program quickly enables digital participation beyond school, and the Eliminate the Digital Divide Act supports extended infrastructure, especially in underserved regions. Rural broadband initiatives such as BEAD and “Internet for All” specifically target communities with the greatest needs. Through these efforts, students gain essential digital literacy for academic and workforce opportunities, and benefits extend to fostering upward mobility for low-income students and communities of color.

Despite expanding access, persistent gaps remain. Implementation, sustainability, and digital literacy still pose significant barriers. Large-scale solutions like the Eliminate the Digital Divide Act are slow to reach affected families. Even when broadband is available, affordability and home digital skills often lag, limiting student benefits. The E-Rate Program is limited by inconsistent support and resource constraints, while reliance on technology raises concerns about screen time and mental health. Rural initiatives also struggle with deployment costs, inconsistent participation, and risks of ongoing disconnection. 

Conclusion 

Ultimately, the mixed outcomes of current policies suggest that while the symptoms of the Homework Gap are addressed, they do not fully resolve the structural factors that produce it. Expanding broadband, providing hotspots, and funding infrastructure are essential steps, but policies must be paired with digital literacy programs, stronger implementation support, and resources for both students and their families. By focusing on programs that address affordability, usability, and educational support, policymakers can move from temporary fixes to long term solutions that close the Homework Gap and the digital divide.

Frequently Asked Questions