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Education Businesses Apple

Buy College Education, Get Free iBook 230

Posted by pudge from the a-cheap-way-to-get-a-computer dept.
kraksmoka writes ""The Chronicle of Higher Education has an article about how Saint Leo University in Florida is offering an iBook laptop to every incoming residential student and full-time faculty member. '... the draw of the iBooks has encouraged some of the more than 1,700 students at the university's main campus who would otherwise commute to live in dormitories, which makes the program a success in the university vice president's eyes.'" The students do not keep the computers, unless they finish two years in the honors program.
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Buy College Education, Get Free iBook More

Buy College Education, Get Free iBook

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  • They do this at a lot of colleges in Michigan in order to attract more students. It's really not anything new, why is this news?
    • No, it isn't the least bit new. My college has been handing out laptops to all incoming students since *1997*. Five years ago. And the students get to keep the laptops.

      Of course, unfortunately I didn't get one because I wasn't a freshman in '97, so all these new students got nice shiny new laptops and I had to leave empty-handed... :-(

  • Two years? (Score:5, Funny)

    by mlknowle ( 175506 ) on Monday December 09, 2002 @01:48PM (#4845306) Homepage Journal
    They demand two years work for a $1,500 computer? Shit, I could make enough to buy one working at McDonald's for just a couple of months!

    Education? What? I'm missing something? Huh?

    • Re:Two years? (Score:1, Troll)

      by BWJones ( 18351 )
      Shit, I could make enough to buy one working at McDonald's for just a couple of months! What? I'm missing something? Huh?

      Yes, you are missing something. In fact, you said it yourself. It's called an education.

  • ahh (Score:2, Funny)

    by russellh ( 547685 )
    when I started college, all we had were labs full of z29 and wyse terminals. and we liked it. so there.

  • spin it around (Score:5, Funny)

    by ccnull ( 607939 ) <null.filmcritic@com> on Monday December 09, 2002 @01:49PM (#4845309) Homepage
    Apple should jump on this as a marketing tool but spin it the other way: Buy an iBook, get a scholarship to the third-rate college of your choice!

  • Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Monday December 09, 2002 @01:49PM (#4845310)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Not economical. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Patik ( 584959 ) <cpatik.gmail@com> on Monday December 09, 2002 @01:49PM (#4845314) Homepage Journal
    The reason people commute is to save the >$5000 cost of room and board. Why would they trade that savings in for a $2000 laptop that they can't even keep? One would be much better off buying their own iBook and commuting -- total savings of $3000, rather than plunking down $3000 ($5000 room/board minus laptop) for the 'rental' of an iBook.

    • Let's be fair... (Score:4, Funny)

      by pXgray ( 464284 ) on Monday December 09, 2002 @01:55PM (#4845373) Homepage
      They don't exactly have a Masters in Business. How can you expect them to do such complex addition and subtraction with only a puny high school diploma?

    • Re:Not economical. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by dbarclay10 ( 70443 ) on Monday December 09, 2002 @01:56PM (#4845387)
      Your math assumes that by commuting, they spend absolutely no money on room and board.

      I suppose a few of the students will be living with their parents, but they'll still have to pay for gas and vehicle maintenance.

      For the rest of them, have you thought that maybe $5000-$1000(laptop) is *less* than what they'd pay if they're commuting? $4000 is a pretty good deal (to a lot of people) for room, board, not having to pay nearly as much for gas, and negligible vehicle maintenance costs.

      • It depends on the school really (Score:5, Interesting)

        by kfg ( 145172 ) on Monday December 09, 2002 @03:00PM (#4845926)
        In my city I would have my choice of two schools within 10 minutes walk from my parents home. One of them is a city community college allied with the state system ( get your associates at the city college and automatic transfer to the four year program at state) and one is an expensive, ritzy, private college of high repute (Union). And this in a city of only 50,000 residents.

        I could get a new "businessman's" one bedroom apartment, equally within walking distance, for only $450/month. Ok, that's $5,400/year, plus food, but to have my own home rather than a dorm room. Get a roomate, if you are so inclined, and have the shared home, but enough left over to buy the laptop on your own, and odds are you'ld have to share the crappy little dorm room anyway, with a "bathroom" you have to share with the whole frikkin' dorm, not just one other person. Rent the apartment first yourself and you even have *personal choice* up front over whether you think your potential roomie is suitable. Pop for another $500/year between the two of you and you each get your own bedroom.

        A "college student's special" studio apartment would only set you back $350/month (yes, with everything). That's only $4200 a year.

        Most colleges have private student housing available within walking distance of campus, and those that don't I've found usually provide free shuttlebus service to/from town. Not as convienient as your own car but a damned sight cheaper.

        Living on your own in town can also be the difference between being able to keep up with your school work AND maintain a part-time job, and not being able to work except for a "student work program" which pays less than minimun wage. This difference alone could make up for a couple of iBooks a year.

        All that being said there are valid reasons beyond the financial for the college encouraging people to live on campus. Thoreau once marveled at the fact that colleges charge you money for the least valuable service they provide, i.e. classes, while the most valuable service, living within the enviroment of the campus and associating with all and sundry in that enviroment, essentially came free. He had a point.

        KFG

        • Los Angeles sucks. Here, it's more like $1000 for a one-room "studio"/"bachelor's" apartment. A full one-bedroom apartment (with a small living room) is more like $1250. And that's for a somewhat scummy apartment with neighbors who cook speed in their kitchens. A nice two-bedroom can easily be $2000.

          Living in a dorm and sharing a room for $600 per month, but including food and utilities, is kind of a good deal in a way. If you get your own single dorm room, you only pay about $100 more. But essentially you have a 1 in 1000 chance of getting that lucky.

          What kind of city are you talking about?

      • Not necessarily. Let's assume a person must drive 10 miles each way to school, with a car that gets 25 mpg, and the price of gas stays around $1.50.

        15 weeks * 5 days/week * 20 miles per day = 1500 miles
        1500 miles / 25 mpg = 60 gallons of gas
        60 gallons * $1.50 = $90 per semester, or $180 for the year, or $230 with a parking permit.

        Compare that to >$5000, which is a low-end estimate (I actually pay close to $10k). You've got >$4800 left to deal with maintenance.

    • they do get to keep it RATFA (read ALL of the fucking article)

      they only have to give it back if they don't complete 2 years in the honors program
    • It's not a rental. They keep it so long as they finish the program, it's only if they drop out that they have to give it back.

  • Some keep them? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by FortKnox ( 169099 ) on Monday December 09, 2002 @01:49PM (#4845316) Homepage Journal
    The students do not keep the computers, unless they finish two years in the honors program.

    Wow, at my old college [uc.edu], they are forcing all the engineers to have laptops (even have a used laptops for sale), but you have to buy them. And even if they supplied them, giving them away is -huge-. Think about it. If you get an iBook for free, its equivalent to going to school for a free semester...

    • Re:Some keep them? (Score:2, Interesting)

      by 0x0d0a ( 568518 )
      If you get an iBook for free, its equivalent to going to school for a free semester.

      And if you jack your tuition up and give away "free" laptops, it's equivalent to getting the students to subsidize your purchases of newer computer systems (to replace the aging ones being given to the students).

      And *then*, if you can get your college on Slashdot...you're just rolling in good fortune.

    • Re:Some keep them? (Score:4, Informative)

      by pi radians ( 170660 ) on Monday December 09, 2002 @02:11PM (#4845505)
      At the college I attend [sheridanc.on.ca] and am about to complete (one week left baby) they force many of their students to have laptops [sheridanc.on.ca].

      It costs $800 CDN a term to lease a ThinkPad from them and at the end of your schooling you have the option to buy the computer you were using.

      So after spending $4800 CDN ($3,075.94 USD) we have the privilage to purchase a laptop that is a few years old for "a low price".
    • I think you need to take a basic economics course. Your math seems a bit off.

      And that's only for *tuition.* Remember, this program posits paying room and board for two years as well to get the "free" computer.

      KFG

    • Re:Some keep them? (Score:4, Informative)

      by carpe_noctem ( 457178 ) on Monday December 09, 2002 @03:02PM (#4845941) Homepage Journal
      Yeah, my school forces everyone to get laptops, too. They're not bad, but I disliked being forced to get their specific model. However, I learned later on that this policy is because it makes the laptops easier to service...if the laptop techs want to make any headway, they'll do so by learning the most about the laptops that the students use, rather than trying to support any creature that walks in. And if they're giving them away, all the better. ;)

    • Re:Some keep them? (Score:3, Informative)

      by dildatron ( 611498 )
      Except the problem is that you aren't just given a laptop "for free".... somebody paid for it. You did, with your tuition, and the donors to the school paid for it, etc. This is what causes tuitions to go up for everyone - the problem is not everyone needs a laptop.

      it's kind of like tax refunds. the government aint giving you shit - they are just giving a little bit of the money back that they took from you.

    • If you get an iBook for free, its equivalent to going to school for a free semester...

      Huh? My iBook cost $1599 in 2001. My last semester of college cost about $5800 tuition ONLY in 1989. Maybe 1 iBook = 1 semester of college at Cincinnatti, but not where I went.

  • What's the real cost? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 09, 2002 @01:50PM (#4845318)
    Call me cynical, but: How much did the tuition increase to pay for this? For some reason, tuition wasn't mentioned... What's the rate of theft on campus? Now with tuition and "student fees", they can pay both a Mac and a Microsoft tax. Great. Any what does any of this have to do with receiving a higher education?
  • Although I didn't see anything in the article about it, the money for these things has to come from somewhere ... and that eventually comes down to higher tuition. Not only that, but only a subset of the students get the computers -- I would be willing to bet that the cost is subsidized by all the students. Why can't they just let students buy their own computers (possibly through a school program) rather than raising prices so that they can "give" everyone a school-authorized laptop?
    • The cost of the computers is factored into students' annual room-and- board expenses


      I should have reread the article, as I skipped over this. (Stupid, stupid, aardvarkjoe.) So it's not as horrible as I imagined ... although the laptops are still being subsidized by those who live in the dormitories, but have their own computers (or otherwise just don't want the iBook...), so the point still stands.

  • You give school iBook!

  • Ah, modern life (Score:5, Funny)

    by Snowdog668 ( 227784 ) on Monday December 09, 2002 @01:52PM (#4845348) Homepage
    I wish they had this program way back when I was in college. I lived on the computer science floor and our benefit was dial-up access to the mainframe.

    dream sequence
    Me talking to my grandkids. Ah, you kids don't know how good you have it. Why, when I was your age TV was two-dimensional in black and white. And we only had four channels and no remote control. And we were glad to have them. Heck, if we wanted to change the channel we had to walk two miles, through ten feet of snow, barefoot. /dream sequence

  • Lending credibility (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    To the above two statements about doorstops and toilet seats:

    The iBooks are pieces of furniture, in our eyes," says Mr. Mezzanini.

  • Great Deal (Score:1, Offtopic)

    by cioxx ( 456323 )
    I'll take 4 iBooks. Make a beowulf cluster out of them and then I won't have to imagine it.

    8 years of college is nothing.

  • I have owned 9 Macs (Score:5, Informative)

    by gsfprez ( 27403 ) on Monday December 09, 2002 @01:56PM (#4845386)
    and i am convinced that my new iBook 800 with combo drive is the best Mac i've ever owned. It took about 2 days for me to belive that.
    (PB 100, Duo 230, 280c, 180c, 520c, 660AV, 7500, G4/450, and TiBook 550 if you really care to know)

    It is cheap (as in beer), its fast, its rock solid construction, its got a sexy bright screen, its got very good wireless coverage, its light (in grams), it has every port i could ever want, and its simple in design which doesn't lend itself to breakage of parts (like my work's Thinkpad with now broken USB door and broken PCCard buttons)

    so what?

    This is a great plan and gives students a great leg up with the ultimate college computer. I wish that i had had the opportunity 12 years ago when i went to college to get a PowerBook 100 (included with tution price).
    • Is there cheap as in speech?

    • Re:I have owned 9 Macs (Score:3, Insightful)

      by tmark ( 230091 )
      i am convinced that my new iBook 800 with combo drive is the best Mac i've ever owned.

      Isn't this almost true by construction ? I mean, can one imagine buying a computer - *any* computer - that *wasn't* much better than their previous, older one ? I mean really, man, you're comparing you're new computer against, among other things, an ancient Powerbook !

      And when you went to college you *did* have the opportunity to get that PB 100 ... the only difference is that in this example, the purchase price is hidden in the tuition cost.
      • >Isn't this almost true by construction ? I mean, can one imagine buying a computer - *any* computer - that *wasn't* much better than their previous, older one ? I mean really, man, you're comparing you're new computer against, among other things, an ancient Powerbook !

        almost. but not completely. I was referring to the amount of satisfaction at time of purchase + satisfaction after purchase (in years)

        the PB 100 was still a staple system for the person that used it after me for many many years.

        the 7500 was by far the most impressive Mac desktop of all time... and still is, in my opinion..

        i mean, i just recently stopped using my 7500 as my main server.. and that's ONLY because there was a problem with the mouse cursor showing up on screen in Mac OS X 10.2! Yeah.. i was using Mac OS X 10.2 .2 on that machine up until three weeks ago...

        i am absolutely amazed at the 7500 as one of the top 10 Macs of the ages.

        (now, to go 100% OT......)

        my other favorite macs... they each have a significance all their own... all other Macs were simply stepping stones between (imho, of course)

        The iMac - ressurection
        PowerBook 100 - design still influences 11 years later
        iBook dual USB - purest, most powerful iteration of PB100
        PowerMacintosh 7500 - oldest mac that still runs 10.2.2 well.. makes windows "macs don't upgrade" lusers cringe in horror.
        Mac IIci - look ma, no screws to open me up!
        TAM - design matters
        PowerMac G3 B&W - look ma, don't need to open me, but you can if you really want to, pull my finger
        PowerBook 2400 - tiny, powerful, sexy, perfect
        PowerBook G4 Titanium - portable $100,000 a/v editing studio, 1" thick.
        Quadra 660/AV - video is as easy to work with as text

        wow.. i am off topic now. but i have kharma to burn.
    • Hm...hopefully you'll be saying that in 3 months. A problem is occuring with a lot of ibooks recently. It seems that a huge number have shipped with bad PMU's that, over a few months, destroy your battery. There's been a lot of people posting about it here [apple.com]. I've already seen reports of it happening with 800mhz ibooks (on the ppc-linux mailing lists). My 700mhz one's battery drops to 0% from 93% now, and the battery is only ~3 months old! The reason I say they seem to have bad PMU's is that people get replacement batteries under warranty and they die the same way. Looks like Apple is just letting people's warranties run out rather than replacing the PMUs (or whatever the problem may be) :-(.

      Don't get me wrong, I love my ibook, it's just that there's something seriously wrong with battery life...Hopefully you don't run into the problem that the rest of us have, but if you do join us in screaming at apple :).
    • so what?

      Good question. So? The stuff you happen to like isn't necessarily the best for these people at college. More to the point, who decides best? If I was at the college, I'd want an x86 Linux laptop, not a Mac. But I wouldn't be given a choice, would I?

      This is a great plan and gives students a great leg up with the ultimate college computer. I wish that i had had the opportunity 12 years ago when i went to college to get a PowerBook 100 (included with tution price).

      I wish my school had these kind of resources - they'd have spent it on books, rebuilding the classrooms that were torched by the local arsonists, and on keeping the teachers they had before they went elsewhere.

      If the college had wanted to negotiate discounts, even 100% discounts on laptops within certain prices/specs then that would have been fine assuming they weren't cutting back elsewhere. As it is, they raise the cost of tuitition (which is already high) even further, regardless of whether a student wishes to pay for the hardware or not.

      Having a laptop of any sort, but especially a Mac laptop (nobody can deny the kind of margins they make on them), "included with the price" is far too much like having Windows "included in the price" of a PC for my comfort.

    • Every port you could ever want (Score:5, Funny)

      by Leeji ( 521631 ) <slashdotNO@SPAMleeholmes.com> on Monday December 09, 2002 @03:32PM (#4846184) Homepage

      it has every port i could ever want

      You must be one of the lucky few here with a girlfriend. I believe the /. term for a person like you is "temporary visitor." :)

  • My college only offers residence to undergraduate students. So if they did offer this and you're graduate, then not only you can't get a cheaper (erm...) roof, but also you can't get a free version of OS X. No switch from me...

  • successful marketing maybe (Score:3, Insightful)

    by wattersa ( 629338 ) <andrew@andrewwatters.com> on Monday December 09, 2002 @01:58PM (#4845411) Homepage
    but it doesn't seem to be attracting the brightest students. Since they are really just *lending* the ibooks to the residents, they can keep recycling them each year. Remember the original toilet seat ibook? Even if some students do complete the honors program and keep the ibooks, that expense is made back many times over by increased rent income for the school. A smart investment, definitely, but who are these people? Persuaded to spend a lot more for on campus housing for a $900 value spread over four years? That's about $18 per month, maybe the school should just offer them a few 12 packs.
    • One thing if this was an RFTA post, but you didn't even read the summary!

      They only give the laptops back if they fail to finish the honors program. Only students who drop out or transfer elsewhere have to give it back.
  • One of my co-workers is in the Masters of Technical Management program at Embry-Riddle University(Daytona, FL), and included with tuition you get a Dell/WinXP laptop, that you get to keep. The cool thing is that with my company's tuition reimbursement plan paying 100% of tuition, it's like the company is buying him a laptop!(and the graduate degree is a nice bonus too)
    • I know some bioengineering graduate students at my school (ASU [asu.edu]) also get Dell laptops for their research. Technically, they're supposed to be returned to the university upon graduation, but since most of them are obsolete by that point, few (if any) are required to.
  • In the experience of my peers, school-supplied required laptops are bad. Usually, they're cheep pieces of ()@#$, with 0 support from the school. In fact, in the case of a Winnipeg-based college, the software that the students had licenses for (supplied by school) wasn't compatible with what they did in class.

    For engineering, etc, having a laptop is great. BUT, if they school wants you to have one, they shouldn't provide it. I mean, 99% of engineering students know more about the computers then the school does!!

  • Great idea... here's why: (Score:5, Insightful)

    by dagg ( 153577 ) on Monday December 09, 2002 @02:10PM (#4845496) Journal
    This seems like a really good deal for Saint Leo University:
    • Many students will not follow all the rules and will have to give the laptop back.
    • After two years, the laptops will be monetarily worthless (definitely after four years). So why not just let the students keep them?
    • I wonder if they're getting a tax writeoff? They could definitely save on taxes if they do it right.
    • Obviously is getting them a lot of publicity.
    --

    Yersex of students [tilegarden.com]
    • This seems like a really good deal for Saint Leo University:

      * Many students will not follow all the rules and will have to give the laptop back.
      * After two years, the laptops will be monetarily worthless (definitely after four years). So why not just let the students keep them?
      * I wonder if they're getting a tax writeoff? They could definitely save on taxes if they do it right.
      * Obviously is getting them a lot of pubicity...

      it said "publicity"... i changed it.
      (/obscure SNL faux commercial reference)

  • Meanwhile (Score:3, Insightful)

    by sheepab ( 461960 ) on Monday December 09, 2002 @02:16PM (#4845542) Homepage
    Meanwhile....fee's to attend this college go up the exact price of an Apple IBook.
  • The students do not keep the computers, unless they finish two years in the honors program.

    So this means that one would have a pretty good chance of getting someone's old iBook, full of pr0n and cached slashdot posts, right? ;-)

  • great motivators for my research students (Score:5, Insightful)

    by call -151 ( 230520 ) on Monday December 09, 2002 @02:17PM (#4845550) Homepage
    I got a bunch of iBooks (for myself and grant-supported research students who are writing code for some of my projects) and the machines are great. We can move source code from there to our Beowulf clusters no problem, the students love them, and they were $1100 a year ago for the most recent batch (ed pricing, the ed pricing on Dell laptops was $1000 and that was for a clunker.) They are even cheaper now. Our `killer apps' are vi and gcc, basically, and under OS X stuff works like they expect it to, from their Unix experience, pretty much.

    I've been able to recruit strong research students by giving them iBooks as well as a decent stipend, and Airport works so well that it's saved me the trouble of worrying about wiring the lab they use and they love using Airport all over the place. I've got some dedicated and loyal students who are doing lots of cool things and being able to give them good machines is definitely responsible for part of that.

  • iBooks in Maine middle schools (Score:5, Informative)

    by corporatemutantninja ( 533295 ) on Monday December 09, 2002 @02:23PM (#4845606)
    Maine has started a program giving iBooks to 7th graders. Their goal is to eventually loan one to EVERY middle school student in the state. I did a quick google search and here's the first article [mainetoday.com] I found.
  • There's a study incentive if I ever heard one. I slacked like Bob Dobbs for the first three years of my college career because there was no instant gratification for doing well. If scoring a 4.0 got me a free computer when I graduated I would have done the boring busy work and maybe even gone to lectures.

    Yeah, I know I was paying out the ass to fail, I know now anyway, but when faced with the freedom to bust my hump or stay in bed all day I took the latter. A simple thing like offering me a hawt computer would have been enough to wake me up. Funny how that works.

  • Retroactive? (Score:5, Funny)

    by grub ( 11606 ) <slashdot@grub.net> on Monday December 09, 2002 @02:27PM (#4845637) Homepage Journal

    Steve Jobs
    Apple Computer

    I graduated in the mid 80's, please send me one of your iBooks.

    Thank you,

    grubby

  • Switch (Score:5, Funny)

    by foxtrot ( 14140 ) on Monday December 09, 2002 @02:37PM (#4845724)
    The students do not keep the computers, unless they finish two years in the honors program.

    My college has these iMacs that we used to use for our homework assignments. One day, I editting my photos and downloading to my iPod on it when all of a sudden a letter from the registrar's office came in. They said I flunked out, and they took my Mac. All of it! The printer, too! I had to move out back to my dad's house quickly. Needless to say, dad's house isn't nearly as good, and I blame that iMac for failing out.

    I'm happy to report my dad has a PC and it crashes too much to actually do anything fun on, so now I just rush my papers and they're good enough for the local community college, and my grades have all been really good.

    Thanks a lot, Apple.

    Ellen

  • Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Monday December 09, 2002 @02:41PM (#4845761)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re:not free (Score:3, Insightful)

      by TeknoHog ( 164938 )
      It's probably cheaper than everyone buying their iBooks separately. Bulk orders always work out cheaper per unit, moreso for educational institutions.
  • Maybe it's like the shaving razor thing: give away the razor, but charge a fortune for thblades. Maybe the school gives away laptops, but charges a ton for power, internet connection, etc...

  • I am a student at Northern Michigan University. We have had a similar such program for the past 4 or 5 years. The school distributes IBM ThinkPads too all professors and students with 12 or more credit hours during a semester. It's really not a bad program. It has a few pitfalls though:
    • The laptops they hand out are the low end models. I am using an iSeries laptop, which is not the prettiest machine I've used in my life. They have recuring problems.
    • The tech support on campus tends to be run by students who don't know what they're talking about. The people who do the repairs are focused on making the school a profit (obviously) thus give hassles for repairs. I know this isn't that different than how real tech support is, but if the school is going to force you to have a laptop, they should provide quality tech support too.
    • It becomes hard to pay attention in dull classes when I am able to hack ;)


    All in all though, it's a good program that I commend the University of Florida for taking up. Now only if I got an iBook instead of the ThinkPad :)

  • double standard (Score:4, Interesting)

    by asv108 ( 141455 ) <asvNO@SPAMivoss.com> on Monday December 09, 2002 @03:16PM (#4846059) Homepage Journal
    Would this be newsworthy if it wasn't an iBook? It seems that /. has joined Wired [wired.com] in the practice of publishing articles that are not newsworthy as long as Macs are involved. Would this be news if they were giving away Dell's? If they were giving away free M$ software this would be a warning article but since it is Apple, the university can push Apple's platform by giving away free hardware and software without the tiniest bit of dissent on /.. If MS made a laptop and this university gave away MS laptops preloaded with windowsXP, people would be screaming that the world is going to end.
    • It's newsworthy because they are not doing the standard MS thing. If they gave out any non-MS laptop, that is certainly news. Many Universities issue Windows laptops, and this goes against the grain. Probably more about economics (Apple giving price breaks) than philosophy, but still very intriguing.
      • Well 10 years ago having anything but Apple in academia was frowned upon. Apple lost its educational stronghold partly due to windows advances, but mismanagement was probably more to blame. Anyhow, I don't see how this is news no matter what the platform, with the exception of Linux.
  • Acadia University in Canada (http://www.acadiau.ca [acadiau.ca]) has been doing something like this for a while. The difference is that everybody at Acadia gets an IBM thinkpad when they go there, they don't have to "work" for it. They upgrade the model they use every two years and you can buy it from them for cheap at the end of the school year. It's a nice system, but then again Acadia is one of the most expensive schools in Canada

  • Webb Institute (Score:2, Informative)

    by ToteAdler ( 631239 )
    I'm currently a student at Webb Institute [webb-institue.edu] in Glen Cove, NY on the north shore of Long Island. Our school is one of only 6 or so schools in the country that grant degrees in Naval Architecture and Marine Engineer [sname.org]. The school "gives" us all computers when we first arrive the first weekend. They are ours until we, fail out, leave, or graduate when they offer to sell them to us for the value of the a survey of eBay prices for similar machines. We don't have tuition so they don't raise our tuition to pay for them and our room and board are significantly low enough to not be the source of computer funding. Along with the laptops our campus has a wireless network so we are able to check our mail, work with software with network locks and surf the internet (play quake, read /.) from anywhere on campus. I can honestly say that having the computer has been invaluble. It is much easier to work on a group project and be able to sit around a library table or in another common area and spread out papers and work than to have a bunch of people huddled around a screen in a computer lab. Its a lot easier to email files back and forth than to have everyone use the same computer. We use our computers for almost all our classes, in chemistry we put lab data right into the computer we'll be writing the report from, math we use Maple and mathcad, NA and ME we use special programs such as HecSalv and GHS. We live under an honor code so theft of the laptops isn't a problem, as well as having 24/7 to anyplace on campus, I can and do leave my laptop in the Library at my desk in the classroom and anywhere else I want to put it down. Hell I could leave a breifcase of diamonds lying around and no one would touch them. Actually the only real prob with the computers is when you're working on them from 10 to 23 1/2 hours a day (sometimes you just have to stop to eat) they're just not as rugged as they could be (and the're running Win, I would prefer a Mac or Linux but hey stupid engineering software...)

  • Love/hate relationship (Score:5, Informative)

    by cybermace5 ( 446439 ) <g.ryan@macetech.com> on Monday December 09, 2002 @03:43PM (#4846297) Homepage Journal
    My college began to "give" (part of fees) laptops to all incoming students in 1995, pretty much the first school to do so.

    My new laptop was a PII-233 Acer, with a 3.2GB drive and I opted for 64MB of RAM instead of 32MB. It only had a 800x600 screen, but it served me well my four years, and I still use it semi-regularly (though it has 160MB of RAM now). The laptop was ours, though any unauthorized hardware tinkering would void the nice 4-year warranty. During my stay, I had two motherboards, one hard drive, one LCD screen, the upper plastic shell, two LCD front and back bezels, a power supply board, and a power brick replaced.

    While the laptop was invaluable for getting work done, it was also a distraction. With a network port at every desk, ICQ became the equivalent of note-passing. Many kids I knew freshman year had to drop out, as they spent the majority of their time playing Starcraft and Quake II, chatting on ICQ and IRC, playing in MUDs, and downloading MP3s. Still, it was pretty useful for emailing professors, getting reports done, and making CEOs jealous in airports.

    The major heartache with laptop ownership happened every fall, when the freshmen would get their shiny new laptops, one full year of computing technology later. During the last year, it was getting difficult to run some of the applications needed for class, on outdated hardware. Everyone I knew ended up buying a desktop machine. With the network connection, I could RDP, VNC, or X applications from my desktop to my laptop. This was pretty much necessary when trying to crunch large mathematical problems in MATLAB; *especially* useful when modeling 3D electromagnetic fields. The laptop was also unable to make anyone jealous.

    If there was one thing I would change about the laptop program, it would be to update the hardware every two years. A two-year-old laptop would still hold some value for charity or resale, and the upperclassmen would not be held down by inferior hardware during their most intensive classes.

  • What about Teaching Assistants? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by standards ( 461431 ) on Monday December 09, 2002 @05:46PM (#4847965)
    Doesn't everyone find it ironic that the most heavily worked and under-appreciated folks at a university, the Teaching Assistants and other staff people, are NOT eligable for the iBook deal?

    No, I have never been a TA.
    And I never want to be one.
  • Back in 1986 I went to Clarkson U, in part because of a similar deal. I got a Zenith AT or something like it with two 5-1/4" drives (one was high density!) and no hard drive. I failed out a year and a half later, but here I am at /. so it couldn't have all been a waste. Could it? (On second thought, don't answer that...)

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