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Half of Nation's Classrooms Now Online, Announces Clinton

President Clinton announced March 1 that more than half of the nation's classrooms have Internet connections, adding that he expects to reach his goal of putting every classroom online by the year 2000, “thanks to new e-rate discounts that help schools and libraries connect to the Internet.”

The National Center for Education Statistics reported that 51% of classrooms, computer labs, and libraries were connected, up from 27% in 1997; in 1994, the rate was only 3%. Furthermore, 89% of schools had Internet access somewhere in the school, an increase of 11 percentage points from 1997.

Clinton's announcement came the same day that the e-rate program released the final wave of funding commitments for its first program year. A total of $1.66 billion went to 25,785 applicants. The amount going to libraries was boosted to $65 million by an additional $9.9 million provided in the final wave.

Posted March 8, 1999.

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