Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act includes funds for education

Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act includes funds for education

On November 15, President Joe Biden signed the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (H.R.3684). The new law provides $1.2 trillion in total funding over 10 years, including $550 billion in new spending during the next five years. The new funding includes $284 billion for the nation’s surface-transportation network and $266 billion for other core infrastructure. The nation’s schools and students will benefit from many of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act’s investments, including:

  • $55 billion for upgrading the nation’s water systems, including $200 million dedicated to eliminating lead contamination in schools;
  • $5 billion for school districts to acquire clean-energy school buses; and
  • $500 million for schools and nonprofits to improve energy efficiency.

The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act includes significant funding for broadband infrastructure that will help close the “Homework Gap” including:

  • $42.45 billion for a new Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment Program to help states close the digital divide in rural and other areas that lack sufficient broadband connectivity;
  • $2.75 billion for the Digital Equity Act to support digital inclusion activities and promote increased broadband adoption; and
  • $14.2 billion for the Broadband Benefit Program, renamed by the new law as the “Affordable Connectivity Program,” to provide $30 per month broadband service subsidies (higher in some limited circumstances) to qualified low-income households.

The new infrastructure law also reauthorizes and extends, until 2023, the Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act, which provides supplemental assistance to schools in 700 counties that have federal forest land.

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