Computers Required - supplies for college students - Brief Article

Careers and Colleges, March, 2001

Books, meal plans, lab fees. You might need to add "computer" to that list of required expenditures at college. Increasingly, schools are requiring students to own or lease a computer. Within the next three years, all public-college students in Massachusetts will be required to own a laptop computer. Currently, all freshmen at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill are required to buy their own laptop computers. The school sells the standard I.B.M. ThinkPad for $2,182 and a lightweight model with more memory for $2,924. Some schools, such as Polytechnic University, with campuses in Brooklyn and Farmingdale, New York, charge students a fee ($500 per semester) to lease high-end laptop computers I loaded with software that students will need to use in their courses.

Nearly 80% of college freshmen say they regularly use a computer.

Source: UCLA's Higher Education Research Institute