{"id":411,"date":"2011-08-04T16:53:28","date_gmt":"2011-08-04T20:53:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/?p=411"},"modified":"2011-08-05T16:01:54","modified_gmt":"2011-08-05T20:01:54","slug":"free-computers-for-needy-students","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/2011\/08\/04\/free-computers-for-needy-students\/","title":{"rendered":"Needy Students Get Computer Vouchers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In an effort to help bridge the so-called \u201cdigital divide\u201d among <a href=\"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/tag\/college-access\/\">low-income students<\/a>, internet provider Comcast is making some big promises:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Vouchers for home computers<\/li>\n<li>Three years of internet service for $9.95 a month<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Every student who is eligible for free meals under the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.fns.usda.gov\/pd\/cnpmain.htm\">National School Lunch Program <\/a>will qualify.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_422\"  class=\"wp-caption module image left\" style=\"max-width: 300px;\"><a rel=\"attachment wp-att-422\" href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/2011\/08\/04\/free-computers-for-needy-students\/children-on-comp-2\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-422\" title=\"children on comp\" src=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/files\/2011\/08\/children-on-comp1-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" srcset=\"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/files\/2011\/08\/children-on-comp1-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/files\/2011\/08\/children-on-comp1-620x413.jpg 620w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/files\/2011\/08\/children-on-comp1-220x146.jpg 220w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><p class=\"wp-media-credit\">Brittney Bomnin \/ Miami Herald <\/p><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Isaura Konig (right) watches as her children, Paul Mamondes, 9, and Melanie Mamnodes, 6, test out an Acer laptop after Comcast announced the national Internet Essentials initiative at the Phillis Wheatley Elementary School auditorium in historic Overtown Thursday morning Aug. 4, 2011. <\/p><\/div>\n<p>And Florida has one of the highest numbers of eligible students in the U.S., behind Texas, California and New Mexico.<\/p>\n<p>In <a href=\"http:\/\/www.miamiherald.com\/2011\/08\/04\/2345083\/comcast-launches-discounted-internet.html\">Miami <\/a>alone, over 200,000 students are eligible.<\/p>\n<p>David Cohen, executive vice president of Comcast Corporation, says Hispanic and African-American communities are expected to benefit most.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen we look around the country we see the disparities that exist,\u201d Cohen said. \u201cQuite frankly people in lower-income communities, mostly people of color, have such <a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/category\/money\/\">limited access<\/a> to broadband than people in wealthier communities.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The program is open to students from K-through-12. But\u00a0only\u00a0to those that\u00a0live in one of the Comcast service areas in 39 states.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In an effort to help bridge the so-called \u201cdigital divide\u201d among low-income students, internet provider Comcast is making some big promises: Vouchers for home computers Three years of internet service for $9.95 a month Every student who is eligible for free meals under the National School Lunch Program will qualify. And Florida has one of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[15],"tags":[1012,75,1023,1021],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/411"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/32"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=411"}],"version-history":[{"count":25,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/411\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":417,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/411\/revisions\/417"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=411"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=411"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=411"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}