The device is connected over the mobile data network, and the arduino is either plugged into my router or my schools ethernet plug ins and neither work. in the setup i had the shield set up a dhcp address instead of an ip address i created. i used dhcp because my router did not allow me to create my own address, and i even tried changing the ports. i am not sure if that has anything to do with it.
EthernetServer server(80);
Ethernet.begin(mac);