For college kids coming back to Kentucky amid COVID-19, the digital divide awaits
The novel coronavirus has shone a spotlight on seemingly incongruous pairings: Healthcare with employment, children’s nutrition with school attendance, and corporate size with access to government assistance. So too should we examine the relationship between internet access and geographic residence. Millions of rural Americans are digitally excluded from an information-rich world. This exclusion is significant for students returning to their rural homes as universities across the country move to online learning. In doing so, the response to coronavirus exposes the nation’s uneven distribution of high-speed internet access and marginalizes students from rural America.
“Digital divide” refers to the growing disparity of access to high-speed internet between underprivileged members of society, specifically those living in rural areas, and wealthier, middle-class Americans living in urban or suburban areas. According to the Federal Communication Commission and Microsoft, Kentucky is one of the worst states for access to high-speed internet and cellular data. But the state is not unique in its short-comings, around 27% of people living in rural America do not have access to minimum speed broadband internet.
On March 10, the president of Harvard University announced the university’s plan to transition to online learning and asked students not to return to campus after spring break. Since then, UK, EKU and WKU have taken similar actions. As a second year law student at Harvard, this decision left me wondering how and if I would be able to complete my coursework from my hometown of Cynthiana, the epicenter of Kentucky’s coronavirus outbreak. Like many of my classmates, I would love to be with family during this uneasy time but Cynthiana, like many areas from rural Kentucky, is a victim of the digital divide.
These sudden shifts to online learning magnify the burdens college students from rural Kentucky experience. For example, Harvard Law is relying exclusively on Zoom, a web-based teleconferencing platform. A functional high-speed internet is required to participate in online lectures, professor’s office hours, or virtual study groups. Yet, students forced to return to their rural homes may not have the internet capabilities for Zoom or similar web-based platforms. This lack of access frustrates the educational experience, may result in a loss of information and leaves students from rural Kentucky at a disadvantage.
The effects of the digital divide extend to K–12 students as well. As Kentucky schools extend their mandated shutdown, the “homework gap”, a term describing the barriers students face when working on homework assignments without a reliable internet source, widens. Students without high-speed internet access may be unable to access essential learning materials or supplemental instructional videos and tutorials. This is disruptive to a child’s formative education. Importantly, for older students, it may reduce their performance on college admission exams.
If we continue to accept remote learning as a sufficient alternative to the classroom, all students must have the internet access necessary to reap the educational benefits. Kentucky has attempted to increase broadband access through the ambitious KentuckyWired initiative, but this has proven costly and ineffective. Fixing the digital divide requires national effort. We need a large-scale investment in rebuilding America’s technological infrastructure. We need federal support of municipalities that seek to resolve the problem on their own, modeling Jackson and Owsley County. Lastly, we need commitments from private internet service providers to offer affordable prices in rural, sparsely dense areas.
As students adjust to these trying and unprecedented times, it’s important we realize not all transitions will be equal. The move to online courses will have a disparate impact on rural Americans, specifically students from rural Kentucky. The coronavirus has exposed the digital divide and it’s time we make a serious commitment to rural Kentuckians – and Americans – to reduce this gap.
Shane Fowler is a student at Harvard Law School. He is a member of the Harvard Legal Aid Bureau, Harvard Black Student Association and Mississippi Delta Project. He graduated from the University of Kentucky in 2015. Shane was born and raised in Cynthiana.