The Changing Face Of Campus Tech 346
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?"
Welcome to a decade ago (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Welcome to a decade ago (Score:5, Funny)
It's just beyond me how they could have accomplished that without Ipods, Napster 2.0 and some quality music like the hits from Will Smith.
Re:Welcome to a decade ago (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Welcome to a decade ago (Score:2)
perhaps they could reduce the tuition so that instead of only the rich spoiled brats that NEED ipods or other crap toys might be able to attend the schools.
i've heard that harvard is upwards of $50,000 a year now, i'm sure these other schools are the same.
how much of that student's tuition goes to crap like ipods and 'napster'?
just bs. 'higher education' indeed.
Re:Welcome to a decade ago (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Welcome to a decade ago (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Welcome to a decade ago (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Welcome to a decade ago (Score:3, Insightful)
Giving away iPods to individual students might be a minor incentive in itself, but what's really significant about this is that by giving them to ALL students changes the environment of the entire school..
Frankly, though, I think it would me more effective to build the infrastructure to make PDAs extraordinarly useful so that students buy the devices on their own. For e
Re:Welcome to a decade ago (Score:2)
Re:Welcome to a decade ago (Score:5, Insightful)
Did you go to a school without a sports program? They haven't much of a point, other than to draw in prospective students and build the college's name up ("they have such an excellent basketball team that I can't imagine they'd employ professors of poor quality!").
Nearly every school spends money to attract students; often they'll intentionally misrepresent the school to in one way or another to attract students. Why? Because, like every other institution, they must perpetuate or die. The latter alternative is the less pleasant one.
Re:Welcome to a decade ago (Score:3, Insightful)
ObSimRef (Score:3, Funny)
Lubchenko: I know! Is phony major. Lubchenko learn nothing. Nothing! [cries]
Oh, and guess where the full-ride scholarships go? Yup, football. Which is part of why one of my favorite schools is my favorite - no football team
Re:Welcome to a decade ago (Score:3, Informative)
Deeply obvious (Score:5, Funny)
Academics? Athletics? Who the heck are you kidding? The choice of school hinges mainly on 1) chicks, 2) bars and 3) frequency of parties. It would be surprising if a free iPod didn't have a deciding effect on 95% of the applicants.
Re:Deeply obvious (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Deeply obvious (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Deeply obvious (Score:3, Interesting)
My school offers free colocation to students. Had I known that before I enrolled, I wouldn't have doubted so much about whether or not to go there.
Freebies ? (Score:5, Insightful)
thousands of dollars a year in school fees is not really "free"
its about as free as in "buy 1 get 1 free"
you are paying for it, maybe you should ask questions like
"why are my school tuition fees being spent on frivilous sundries benefiting 3rd party companies instead of improving my schools educational resources"
Re:Freebies ? (Score:5, Interesting)
"why are my school tuition fees being spent on frivilous sundries benefiting 3rd party companies instead of improving my schools educational resources"
Better question is how come that money isn't spent equally on diverse platforms (i.e. Mac, Linux, Sun, whatever). Instead, MS buys out the entire college.
At my school the technology desk used to send Mac users to me whenever they needed help setting up their wireless connection or accessing the school network. I had no problem with that, because their alternative policy was "not Windows, not supported." To the school's credit though not everyone was incredibly closed-minded. I guess this is what happens though when corporate interests become infused with curriculum and budgeting.
I wrote them a complaint after graduation.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Freebies ? (Score:2)
Now that everything exists on the computer, whole essasy are uploaded- usually poor ones, for making fun of, or as bad examples. There are still gem essays out there that get 95% with no spelling mistakes, and perfect grammar, but someone who invest
Re:Freebies ? (Score:3, Insightful)
I think you're wrong there - spelling, grammar and writing are not getting worse; it's just that the spelling, writing and grammar of the masses is now more public - when things were hand written, or machine typed; there was only one copy, and the professor had it.
Now that everything exists on the computer, whole essays are uploaded - usually poor ones, for making fun of, or as bad examples. There are
And yet... (Score:2, Funny)
insert subject here: (Score:5, Insightful)
"Freebies" my ass. Do you have any idea what tuition is up to these days? Anyone who thinks that either the students or taxpayers didn't pay for that nifty Napster service or shiny iPod's must not have majored in Econ. The iPod's I don't much care about; at least Apple has a record of being kind to educational institutions and new uses will be devised. To hell with the industry lapdog known as Napster; the only reason the schools purchase it for their students is to get a reprieve from the flood of lawsuits. I guarantee, even if the p2p traffic from the campus doubles, we won't see any new lawsuits.
Re:insert subject here: (Score:5, Interesting)
Yeah, as a student preparing to go to college in a year, I'm rather unhappy about all the "freebies", too. No student should be looking at such things when choosing a college because it should be blatantly obvious that these "freebies" are coming straight out of your own tuition. People don't want to buy a bundle including things like free music when they pay for college, they want education.
Incidentally, I think this is a really good example of how a few colleges, like Duke, are really riding on, what I would say is, irrational demand. In the last few years, Duke has really gotten a surge in interest from students and it definitley doesn't correspond to some sort of surge in Duke's educational record. Duke sees that its making money off just being "cool" and its trying to keep this wave going a bit longer with scams like this.
Re:insert subject here: (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:insert subject here: (Score:2)
For instance: At the university I was employed at (and was a student at) there was a *MANDATORY* reitrement plan. 7% of your income, GONE. The last year I was there they institutied mandatory student health care, at a cost of around $1000 a year. This is on top of the 30 - 40% of our tuition which was already for non tuition things. 80$ a quarter
Re:insert subject here: (Score:2)
well, maybe they majored in political economics
Re:insert subject here: (Score:2)
Ivy League schools do not give specifically athletic scholarships, you are correct. However, I've seen a lot of cases where athletes are accepted into Ivys based largely on athletic merit. Need-based financial aid fills any gap left open by lack of athletic scholarship.
Athletic recruitment happens at all schools, even the Ivys. (I go to a different one than you, but you'll have to figure out which! :P ).
Hmm... (Score:5, Funny)
I know you just blew 100k on a completely useless GPS tracking system for your shuttle buses that don't leave campus. Next year, could you please consider supplying Nikon D70 packages to your returning sophomores?
Re:Hmm... (Score:5, Funny)
Seriously, I wonder if that's ever the currency denomination referred to by internal budgeting people. The Ooss (pronounced ooze, meaning "out-of-state students").
As in, "Hey jim, I'm headin down to admishins, how muched those I-Paweds cost?"
"Bout 75 ooze."
"Whoo-ey!"
Stanford went overboard on that, too (Score:3, Interesting)
During the dot-com boom, Stanford was getting about a 20% return on the endowment, and they got carried away. Then when the market tanked, they started hitting on us alumni for more money.
How are they free? (Score:5, Insightful)
Freebies? (Score:5, Insightful)
Even most schools that have these Napster like services make the students pay for music. I wouldn't exactly call that free.
Good schools will still attract students based on academic reputation, not on freebies.
LSU is definatly not Free. (Score:3, Insightful)
Ditto here in Baton Rouge, TANSTAAFL, what's offered as "free" is pathetic and getting more costly and dumber all the time. LSU has charged a "tech fee" for years that's a significant percentage of the actual tuition. This fee is getting larger and they are now considering a laptop requirement on top of it.
The money is being spent but it's all controlled tightly and not very flexible. They have more computers th
Scholarships? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Scholarships? (Score:2)
Re:Scholarships? (Score:2)
Re:Scholarships? (Score:5, Interesting)
Most schools are actually not-for-profit organizations, however they do need to be capitalistic, not for money, but for students. Schools always want to get students with the best qualifications, so they'll dangle things for them to come to their school over another. Duke for example, is competining with Harvard and Yale and other similar schools for the cream of the freshman crop. Thus it's in their interest to say "Come to Duke, we'll give you a free IPod", and all other things being equal, this could be enough to sway a guy who has to pay $30000 a year to go to Harvard, or to pay $30000 a year to go to Duke, but gets a cool toy out of it. The school figures that spending a few hundred bucks per student will improve the quality of the student body more than giving one guy a full scholarship.
Re:Scholarships? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Scholarships? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Scholarships? (Score:2)
Duke University gave away free iPods... (Score:5, Funny)
Ok, that was a bad one.
Re:Duke University gave away free iPods... (Score:2)
Wireless Access (Score:5, Interesting)
And the wireless network used to exist, but it was taken down because (holy shit!) students were sitting out in the parking lot using it.
Bastion of education, that.
Re:Wireless Access (Score:2)
What? Were they sitting in the parking lot doing illegal stuff? What's it matter if they are wireless users with laptops lookign up porn in the parking lot or they have a desktop connected with patch cable looking up porn in their room?
Re:Wireless Access (Score:2)
Re:Wireless Access (Score:2)
12345678 --- 56781234
When I worked in the support center I could always tell when a convention or a bunch of other guests were on campus. Imagine telling a thousand people that there is a reason they can't hook up their laptop to check their mail... on a near weekly basis.
Re:Wireless Access (Score:2)
I'm stunned by the idea that you can't bring your laptop on campus at all. Is there really such a rule? What justification do they give for it? I'm hard pressed to believe that a public institution could get away with such a thing. I've heard of banning guns, but laptops?
Re:Wireless Access (Score:2)
We're aiming for ubiquitous wifi, but I'm not convinced we'll do it with 300 AP's. We shall see.
I'm entertained by the fact that I'll use over a
Re:Wireless Access (Score:2)
Oh well, I tend to just ask for an ip-address for just about anything since we have a whole A-class to choose from at my school.. Nice having something like 1/250 of the whole world's ip addresses essentially for pick (well, they do segment it around campus).
Re:Wireless Access (Score:2)
Of course (Score:5, Insightful)
But it seems to me that these technology items really fall into "academics"; e.g., some schools have better facilities or faculty than another for some particular discipline, and it could be argued that decisions based on that fall under the general guise of "academics", so why not this?
Not the way I see it :-P (Score:5, Insightful)
On a separate note, if Penn State jumped on the iPod bandwagon, it would be not be compatible with its new Napster agreement. Screw that.
This makes me sick (Score:2)
I can understand wireless acess points and good tech all around, in the sense of networks. Those kind of things may actually have some tangible impact on your enjoyment of colleg
Re:This makes me sick (Score:2)
Re:This makes me sick (Score:2)
Buying students (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Re:Buying students (Score:2)
Re:Buying students (Score:2)
the argument would go that you're paying for a quality education. Whether that's worth $160k is another question...I can tell you a substantial number of people i know from the 2004 graduating class will be making rather large salaries this upcoming year, and or doing graduate studies. it's a tradeoff.
though we're
Re:Buying students (Score:3, Interesting)
"Pulic dole" for a $40,000 / year school? No fuckin way. the default rate on student loans was ~5% in 2003, so I don't know where you get this "many of which a defaulted upon" figure from. Do you know what happens to you if you default on a student loan? Try not paying tax
Re:Buying students (Score:4, Insightful)
Everyone who gets federal loans has to go through entrance councling about what they're getting themselves into. So here's why federal loans are hardly a "go to college for free deal". First, there are only two ways to get out of a federal loan without paying - either die, or become so severely disabled that you're no longer able to function and hold a job. Bancrupcy does not absolve you of federal loans. If you're in default, the government can garnish your wages and your tax return until you're paid off. Additionally, your school will withhold your records if you're in default of your loans, so if you're applying for a new job or a professional license or something, your school will not release your transcript. Schools have a vested interest in making sure their students pay back their federal loans, because if the percecentage of their students who are in default gets too high, the government will stop giving that school's students federal loans. So if you're planning to live off the grid after you graduate, then yes, federal loans are free money.
My selection... (Score:2)
Mmmm. Shiny.
Wireless (Score:4, Informative)
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.
enjoy your rising tuition (Score:2)
Athletics? (Score:4, Interesting)
For those students who aren't on an athletic team, how are the athletics at a school any different from "perks" like internet access? I would actually argue that the ability for students to get work done more easily (like on laptops on a lawn on a nice day) should be more important for students considering where to go than the possibilty of the school's football team to go to a bowl game.
Re:Athletics? (Score:2, Interesting)
For those students who aren't on an athletic team, how are the athletics at a school any different from "perks" like internet access?
I wouldn't consider student athletes to be receiving any perks at all. Sure they may go to school for free or for reduced cost, but look at that they are getting in return:
Not only WiFi, but Internet2 as well (Score:5, Interesting)
The best campuses are offering Internet2 [internet2.edu] connectivity -- I wouldn't even consider going to a college without Internet2 access. The main advantage of Internet2, besides speed, is that it is separate from the regular Internet1, and less susceptible to monitoring by third parties such as corrupt administrators and the questionable activities of BayTSP and others.
I've been using I2Hub [i2hub.com] for a couple weeks at my college and am very impressed. All the benefits of fast Internet P2P at college, without the drawbacks (i.e., the RIAA suing you).
Personally I don't buy the subsidized Napster or other music service access. I would rather choose a college based on its academic credibility, performance, a rigorous curriculum and dedicated teachers. College is an investment, and while access to these services may seem nice, I doubt many students will choose colleges entirely based on this. You would get much more out of going to a well-respected established universe than a cheap fly-by-night college that gives out useful gadgets for free to lure you in to paying for a four-year education. That said, Internet2 and iPods are invaluable, but I think of them more as gifts than a deciding factor in choosing which campus to matriculate to.
My Perk (Score:3, Funny)
girls > geek perks
(begin the "You're new here, aren't you" remarks)
Pimping the Freshman (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Pimping the Freshman (Score:3, Insightful)
They're portable hard drives. What don't they have to with education? I wish my school gave me one for my graphic arts program. Maybe then we wouldn't have been messing around with Zip discs and trying to squeeze 100MB Photoshop files onto a 64MB thumb drive. And yes there are other solutions but an iPod is a nice one.
Re:Pimping the Freshman (Score:2)
Network space at my university was limited (at the time) to 20mb per user; not really useful for huge media files. And even if the space were higher, transferring stuff is going to be time consuming if you live off campus (assuming they even offer FTP/WebDAV access).
If you're working with video, audio, or just don't feel like deleting your files all the time (512mb isn't very much) then the iPod is a good solution. Not
Not exactly a freebie, but.. (Score:3, Interesting)
Tech freebies are good and all, but people should really choose their college based on how much they like the location and education and such. Tech freebies will only keep one entertained for so long.
Re:Not exactly a freebie, but.. (Score:4, Funny)
Ah, another RPI victim. After 3 years, your laptop is pretty crappy, and you still haven't gotten laid. Enjoy the weather!
(I graduated well before the laptop bullshit)
Re:Not exactly a freebie, but.. (Score:2, Interesting)
I'd choose *against* such colleges (Score:5, Interesting)
Given the choice between a "free" iPod and having better teaching staff, I'd go for the college who spent *my* money on improving the education they can give me. If I was a music or media student then maybe an iPod would be a plus. Otherwise it's just a waste of my hard earned fees.
The Napster stuff is absolutely horrendous. To me, universities are the *last* place that should be bowing to corporate bullying and selling its students as dumb consumers. Especially using the students money to do so.
A good wireless network would seem to me to be a better alternative to larger computer labs, and I'd say that generally is a good thing.
I went to University to learn and have fun learning. Sure, I love iPods, but I'd rather have had more textbooks, or more teaching staff, or better equipment in the labs.
Or cheaper fees.
- MugginsM
universities are virtual corporations nowdays (Score:3, Insightful)
It seems that these days universities are corporations themselves. In this darwinistic neoliberal state that America has become, universities are practically preying on the students, like some sort of scamming ripoff joint. What differnce is there between the rapacious check cashing stores and tax refund outlets that prey upon the urban poor, and these fucking universities that set up these kids with tens of thousands of dallars in debt so they can get a BA from some cow college?
It is SO sad what has happ
Won't make much difference (Score:2)
Besides, some schools have been making things like laptops part of the tuition for years. This really isn't that new when you look at it this way. It's just the next evolution in perks
As the value of an education declines... (Score:4, Insightful)
As tuition prices skyrocket, and salaries decline, the value of a college education drops. It makes sense that campuses will start offering "perks" that appeal to 17 year olds to make them go to their schools.
I mean, students are paying $120,000 or more for that "free" iPod, but a high school student doesn't understand about student loans or what that money actually represents.
Re:As the value of an education declines... (Score:2)
I went to a pretty good private college for five years in an engineering program and paid nowhere near $120,000. If I had paid full tuition, bought every book and education supply some professor thoght necessary new from the bookstore, stayed in the dorms and paid for the full meal plan every term, I probably could have managed to get close to $120,000.
IT is an important factor (Score:2)
Considering the HUGE tuition fees... (Score:2)
A bit of an exaggeration, maybe, but not that much of one....
My friend in High School did exactly this... (Score:2)
Ok, I'll bite... (Score:2)
Making sense of spending (Score:2)
somebody is a glass half full sort of person... (Score:2)
considering how badly universities choose, mine chose compaq laptops which ended up terrible quality, ipods loose most ways compared to iriver (ogg suppo
Fun summer (Score:4, Funny)
A busy as hell summer, but we're being poised to light up things like VoiP, TVoIP and ubiquitous wifi.
nope (Score:2, Insightful)
far more traditional factors determine choice of university in my i'm-a-first-year-student-in-university opinion. where i come from, its all about the reputation of the university in question, and the weight a degree from the university will carry in your resume.
between universities of similar 'repute' it then comes down to stuff like school culture, how 'happening' it is, the course-specifics (like whether Law is taught better in institution A or B) etc.
freebies? nah. these add to the o
How about free text books? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:How about free text books? (Score:2)
Only fools pay full price and/or buy new. I saved something like over 60% on my textbooks this year. Some of them were international editions etc.
You think that's bad. (Score:2)
UAH missed that boat (Score:4, Interesting)
Over the summer they extended port blocks that already included all filesharing and bittorrent to cover other connection types. Remote desktop no longer works, and neither do several major MMO games that rely on peer connections. So in the end we no longer have static IPs, our network usage is monitored, we get to send our social security numbers all across the network, and the network is slower than it has ever been. It is a good day if I can stream an NPR broadcast.
The best part is they instituted the logins and java monitoring applet AFTER student leases were renewed and without telling us beforehand. So now I and some friends are stuck in our 9-month leases under network usage terms we don't accept. Am I pissed? yeah.
damnit! (Score:2, Funny)
I wish I had it so good! (Score:2, Funny)
10GB Lines (Score:2, Informative)
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 b
Napster deals = extortion (Score:2)
Campus Tech? (Score:3, Insightful)
Anyway, I moved off campus. In fact, the company that I have internet with right now really stinks... they claim it's high-speed, up to 1.5 mbps, but my last dslreports.com speedtest pulled 22... thats 22 kilobits a second, not bytes.
If I want 28.8 access, I'll get my DeLorean and move back to 1997. So anyway, I'm about to drop this company and pick up another one. Living off campus is nice, and honestly, after I figured in all of the costs that your 'room&board' on campus doesn't cover (like parking), it was actually LESS expensive to live off-campus.
Re:This is a bad idea IMO (Score:2, Informative)
Then I want some of what you're smoking, because they're identical.
Re:This is a bad idea IMO (Score:3, Informative)
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
Re:Yesterday's News Today (Score:2)
Just as with other fields, having the Internet available gives you a good source of resources available, a tool to provide inexpensive communication and entertainment, and so forth. But it's not really necessary to have a fast Internet connection to get a CS major. It isn't actually even necessary to be able to program to get a CS major at some places, though I'd say that it's probably