Requiring laptops for all incoming college freshmen

Laptop Distribution Day at SJU

This week's assignment pondered this question. Should colleges and universities a "one laptop for one student" policy? I decided to research two schools, Grove City College in Pennsylvania and St. John's University in Queens, New York.

Both are private, liberal arts schools, however GCC has an enrollment size of 2,500 students while SJU boasts an enrollment size of more than 15,000 students. My findings conclude that laptop programs are beneficial to students.

Summary and conclusion excerpt from my paper...

First, both schools provide students with the same laptop model so that technical support can anticipate and easily handle updates, virus protection and computer issues as they arise. Secondly, because it is imperative to provide everyone with the same model, the laptops are paid for through student tuition. Thirdly, both schools provide on-site repairs and ‘how to’ laptop training to faculty and students. And lastly, because these schools do not provide computers to part-time status students, it is necessary to accommodate this student population by providing on-campus computer labs.

Overall, requiring laptops for freshmen did increase the level of technology on campus, it did promote the concept of anytime/anywhere learning with its wireless Internet access across campus and it did increase the institution’s marketing advantage since both schools heavily promote the laptop program on its respective websites. However, both schools fail to mention if it did reduce university costs overtime. Further investigation would be necessary to accurately answer this question.

For a listing of higher education schools across the United States with required laptop programs, go to http://www2.westminster-mo.edu/wc_users/homepages/staff/brownr/NoteBookList.html