Discount Rates
An E-rate discount can range from 20% to 90%, depending whether your school is located in an urban or rural area and the economic need of your students. The level of economic need is determined by the percentage of students eligible for the National School Lunch Program. Both of these sets of information are then used to determine the school’s discount by using the matrix below:
INCOME |
URBAN LOCATION |
RURAL LOCATION |
If the % of students in your school that qualifies for the National School Lunch Program is... |
...and you are in an URBAN area, your |
...and you are in a RURAL area, your |
Less than 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% |
90% |
90% |
Rural Urban County Designations
Rural/Urban Designations are based on definitions adopted by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Rural Health Policy (ORHP/HHS). To determine whether your school is located in an urban or rural-designed county, see chart below or download spreadsheet:
North Carolina Rural Counties (Table header)
Alleghany |
Columbus |
Halifax |
Martin |
Pamlico |
Transylvania |
National School Lunch Program
Spreadsheets from North Carolina:
Alternative Discount Mechanisms Fact Sheet
Schools may use alternative calculation methods to determine the level of need for calculating discounts for eligible products and services.
I. Primary measure for Schools and Libraries discounts
The primary measure for determining discounts is the percentage of students eligible for free and reduced lunches under the National School Lunch Program (NSLP), calculated by individual school. Students from family units whose income is at or below 185% of the federal poverty guideline are eligible for the NSLP.
II. Alternative methods
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) also allows other methods to determine a school's level of need, as long as those methods are based on - or do not exceed - the same measure of poverty used by NSLP.
These federally-approved alternative methods use data comparable to NSLP data which are:
- collected through alternative means such as a survey; or
- from existing sources such as Aid to Families with Dependent Children or tuition scholarship programs.
III. Survey guidelines
If a school chooses to do a survey, the following guidelines apply:
- The survey must be sent to all families whose children attend the school.
- The survey must attain a response rate of at least 50%.
- The survey must, at a minimum, contain the following information:
- Address of family
- Grade level of each child
- Size of the family
- Income level of the parents
- The survey must assure confidentiality (e.g., the names of the families are not required)
IV. Acceptable alternative measures of poverty
The following measures of poverty are currently acceptable alternatives to NSLP eligibility:
- Family income level at or below 185% of the federal poverty guideline.
- Participation in one or more of the following programs:
- Medicaid
- Food stamps
- Supplementary Security Income (SSI)
- Federal public housing assistance or Section 8 (a federal housing assistance program administered by the Department of Housing and Urban Development)
- Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program
V. Existing sources
Schools may also use existing sources of data that measure levels of poverty, such as TANF or need-based tuition assistance programs. However, these measures are acceptable for Schools and Libraries Program discount purposes only if the family income of participants is at or below the Income Eligibility Guidelines (IEG) for NSLP.
VI. Matching siblings
The siblings of a student in a school that has established that the student's family income is at or below the IEG for NSLP may also be counted as eligible for discount purposes by the respective schools the siblings attend.
For example, an elementary school has established through a survey that a student's family income is at or below the IEG for NSLP. That student has a brother and a sister who attend the local high school. The high school may use the status of the elementary school sibling to count his high school siblings as eligible for discount purposes, without collecting its own data on that family.
VII. Projections based on surveys
If a school has sent a questionnaire to all of its families and it receives a response rate of at least 50 percent, it may use that data to project the percentage of eligibility for discount purposes for all students in the school.
For example, a school with 100 students sends a questionnaire to the 100 homes of those students and 75 of those families return the questionnaire. The school finds that the incomes of 25 of those 75 families are at or below the IEG for NSLP. Consequently, 33 percent of the students from those families are eligible for Schools and Libraries support purposes. The school may then project from that sample to conclude that 33 percent of the total enrollment, or 33 of the 100 students in the school, are eligible for the purpose of calculating discounts.
VIII. Unacceptable alternative methods
The following alternative measures of poverty are NOT acceptable for determining discounts. They rely on projections rather than on the collection of actual data:
- Feeder school method. This method projects the number of low-income students in a middle or high school based on the average poverty rate of the elementary school(s) which "feeds" students to the middle or high school.
- Proportional method. This method projects the number of low-income students in a school using an estimate of local poverty.
- Extrapolation from non-random samples. This method uses a non-random sample of students chosen to derive the percentage of poverty in a school, such as those families personally known by the principal ("Principal's method") or the families of students that apply for financial aid (a non-random sample).
- Title 1 eligibility. This method uses eligibility for Title 1 funds as the criterion for estimating the level of poverty in a particular school. Some measures of poverty eligible under Title 1 are indirect estimates of poverty and do not necessarily equate to the measure of poverty for the Schools and Libraries program discounts, namely eligibility for NSLP.
