The Changing Face Of Campus Tech

SeaDour writes "CNET News has an interesting perspective on the changing face of technology on campus. These days, students are showing more interest in the tech perks that campuses have to offer, and universities are taking notice. Duke University, for example, just gave away free iPods to each of their 1,650 incoming freshman. Penn State offers subsidized access to Napster 2.0 for all students, and many other schools are now considering similar programs with Rhapsody and Cdigix. Perhaps the best offering is wireless internet access, which 90% of campuses now offer in some form. Are we seeing the day when college students make their school of choice not based solely on academics or athletics, but also on tech freebies like these?"

Buying students

[darylb]

According to Duke's website [duke.edu], it now costs in excess of $40,000 per undergraduate year at Duke. And all they have to do to get people to commit to that level of insane cost is to give away network access and iPods? If that's the case, look for every two-bit program in the country to be loading students up with $2,000 in "freebies", just before tuition goes up $5,000. Of course, college students today are mostly on the public dole in the form of grants, government-insured loans (many of which are defaulted upon, passing cost to the taxpayer), and federal aid to their school. So what do they care? This is even better than the sleazy "finance guy" at the car dealership, who is all too willing to sell you the $2,000 car warranty, rolling it in to your 7%, 6 year balloon note.

Wireless

[FuzzzyLogik]

One of the biggest perks to my new college is that they have 802.11b in every building. I didn't really know this going in but was very happy to see it when i was looking around on their website after i had transfered and was checking out the IT website.

In fact from what I heard they were the first fully wireless campus in michigan. quite the feat.

I've found it very very useful. I can check out electronic resources for a book we're reading in class or in some of my classes we have electronic reserves, which are basically scanned documents a teacher makes available only online so they don't have to run off copies for everyone. Very useful having net access anywhere and everywhere, also means i don't have to sit around waiting for a seat to be free in a lab, unless i want to print a paper.

Re:Wireless Access

[Anonymous Coward]

Then practice good economic sense and take your business elsewhere. I wouldn't go to a college that was ran like a high school, thats for sure.

UT-Dallas [utd.edu], which I am sure is a much higher quality campus has almost complete wireless coverage and you can use your laptop wherever you please.

Re:This is a bad idea IMO

[andfarm]

What if I don't want an iPod? What if I like Dell's music player better??

Then I want some of what you're smoking, because they're identical.

Re:Scholarships?

[JeffTL]

There won't be any scholarships coming out of student tech fees. They're funneled into the IT department and after they put junk in the labs and make the faculty fetch their e-mail on garbage (as in 3-year-old or so lab surplus when they get their hands on it, and they keep it for God knows how long), there's a surplus. They spend it on perks for themselves (Altiris servers so they don't have to go around with a LaCie drive and a Knoppix disk, or expensive Windows server software so they don't have to learn how to use Linux) or on occasion students and employees.

Re:This is a bad idea IMO

[CyberDave]

Where the hell is the "-1, Just Plain Wrong..." moderation option?

It's the HP music player that's identical to the iPod, not Dell's.

I'd mod this comment down, but I wanted to correct such gross misinformation.

CyberDave

10GB Lines

[karniv0re]

My school (UNO [unomaha.edu]) is currently implementing 10Gbps lines into the College of IS&T. However, being a sophomore, I don't get much chance to play. We've also got a super computer, and a lot of other fun toys. All that really was the selling point. The prospect of being able to eventually play with that stuff sold me instantly.

To hell with free iPods. If I want one of those (which I do), I'll go to FreeiPods.com [freeipods.com]. For a school to entice me, I don't want gimmicks or handouts, I want hands-on experience with bleeding-edge technology that I wouldn't get to touch otherwise.

Re:Deeply obvious

[thief_inc]

Let me tell you some thing I do field service work at CalTech and many other colleges and Uni's and CalTech's women are the most unatractive of them all. I almost dread going there its like going to the anti-playboy mansion.

Re:Buying students

[Anonymous Coward]

Current default rate is about 5.4% (on par with the rate of default of FHA mortgage borrowers); it was as high as 20% in 1990. That's a LOT of money. Sure, the feds will try to get it back. In the meantime, the lenders have to be repaid, out of the public treasury. Sure, the defaulter will find a fed on his trail at every turn, but the taxpayer's still on the hook. And collection costs aren't exactly free, either. Someone's gotta be paid to be the repo man.

Re:Welcome to a decade ago

[nwbvt]

Sports programs are often paid for from a seperate pocket than academics, so the whole "my tuition is being wasted on football" argument doesn't hold water. This is the case at my university (Virginia Tech, which has a large sports program) and many others. Sports programs are more than capable of paying for themselves.