Colleges - bastions of higher education?

[SonicVanguard]

Most colleges in recent years have started to require incoming freshmen (or all students) to have a computer of some sort when entering college. So colleges go so far as to require laptops for mobility and ease of use throughout the college campus.

This year a local Art and Design school (one of the best in the country) decided to not only require all students have laptops but they had to have Apple Macbooks (preferably MacBook Pros). On top of that, students are required to have AppleCare's 3 year warranty. Now as I said, this is an art and design school - the reasoning behind requiring MacBooks is that they are intel-based and will dual-boot OS-X and WindowsXP (another requirement regardless of major). On the outside, this makes some sense - designers will need AutoCAD while art students may need Photoshop and Illustrator and Mass Communication students will need tools like Final Cut Pro. But all students are required to get WindowsXP Pro and MS Office student edition (for windows). They've arranged for the local Apple store to equip students on the Mac side while the school has special MS techs on campus to install bootcamp, WindowsXP Pro and any other Windows based software required by the school the students may not be comfortable installing themselves.

So the bottom line for these students is they are laying out upwards of $4,000 (depending on the software required for their given major) for a laptop required by the school.

Here's the rub...




Any Mac that has WindowsXP installed voids the AppleCare warranty. Even though bootcamp is built and supplied by Apple, WindowsXP is not supported and is thus considered by Apple to void the AppleCare agreement. Students have already run into problems when taking their new MacBooks into the local Apple store and being turned away because bootcamp and WindowsXP is installed on the computer. The only this AppleCare will cover at this point is OS-X itself.

Those oh so smart Edumacation Administrators are up to their ears in PO'ed students and parents who are not pleased that this private school - with annual costs over $20,000/year - pulled something like this on students. Personally I think it's sad students are being required to buy such an expensive computer when a Windows/based system can do anything/everything a Mac-based system can do regardless of their major's requirements. But to find out their computers are no longer covered by the AppleCare warranty is really a low blow.

[David M]

The college needs to correct their mistakes or risk losing students to other art colleges. It looks like a simple case of Apple-centric Mac users.

[Force Flow]

There's certainly a few clever members on that particular board of administrators...

I actually got into a discussion about the windows/mac multimedia thing. The only huge difference is that it doesn't appear that Final Cut is available for Windows (for sharing stuff back and forth between platforms). Avid and Premiere seem to be the PC-centric upper eschelon video editors. I crash the mac video editors as much as the PC ones, so I really don't see much of a difference when the stability arguement comes up.

[ZeratulsAvenger]

When I was an entering freshman last year, our school required every freshman to purchase the same laptops, but we could only do it through the school. All 500 students were issued the laptop (in my sig) through our school with a fee tacked onto our first tuition payment for $3,000. Some of it is the cost of the warranty, and software, but I was really quite dissapointed.

I have yet to do anything that I think really required a "workstation" graphics card (costly), and I would have rather just purchased a Mac and used Windows for the few required software programs and done the rest in OS X. I don't like the system really. I suppose for support, it is much easier to only have to know and support 4 laptops, but I would gladly ditch their service if I could just choose my own computer.

[Force Flow]

The problem is, most people don't know how to build/maintain a computer (especially outside of IT/CS/IS majors), so schools feel it necessary to set a computing standard. This is as much for the students as for the IT deptartment that has to support the computers. It's easier to support a single model/brand so you have the spare parts in stock, as well as trained support.

I know RPI had a laptop program, but it wasn't manditory. It was actually one of the better ones I'd heard of. I think it was (at the time) an IBM thinkpad for $3500, which could be upgraded every year for a new model for free, with, of course, free tech support. And you got to keep the latest one you have after leaving the school.

[TimPoet]

Professing to be wise, they became fools.

[mainiac]

I never heard of that before. My school doesn't require a student to buy a laptop, desktop, etc. But many professors use Blackboard (which needs to be accessed via internet), so my school has a computer lab and students can rent out laptops from there. You should try and get that college to do the same. They should put their money where their mouths are and at least give access to computers with the needed software for those who can't afford the laptop.

[SonicVanguard]

Originally Posted by mainiac I never heard of that before. My school doesn't require a student to buy a laptop, desktop, etc. But many professors use Blackboard (which needs to be accessed via internet), so my school has a computer lab and students can rent out laptops from there. You should try and get that college to do the same. They should put their money where their mouths are and at least give access to computers with the needed software for those who can't afford the laptop.

Many schools require incoming students to have computers - most of those are usually required to be laptops because of mobility.

And believe me, if you can afford to go to this school, you can afford a laptop. Schools generally (and it's true in the case) provide additional financial aid to those students that need it to get the computer.

My problem (and many people around this area agree with me) is forcing students to get a MacBook with a 3 year warranty that is then negated by the use of Apple's own bootcamp which allows the installation of WindowsXP.

[Panama Red]

Hey, SV. Is this the local school of Art and Design? Just curious.

[SonicVanguard]

Originally Posted by Panama Red Hey, SV. Is this the local school of Art and Design? Just curious.

Yep...that's the one.

[glfredrick]

Still so many folks living in the past and actually believing the MAC commercials on televison (which were probably made with Microsoft products on PCs!).

Tisk, tisk, tisk.

An apple a day keeps the teacher at bay.

[nocturnx]

Pffft I wouldn't go to that school then, theres plenty of other options. Private art schools are way over-rated anyway.

[SonicVanguard]

Originally Posted by nocturnx Pffft I wouldn't go to that school then, theres plenty of other options. Private art schools are way over-rated anyway.

Unfortunately this one is the premiere furniture design school in the US - their industrial design and interior design programs also rank in the top 5 nationally. So there are plenty of people that want to attend.

[nocturnx]

Originally Posted by SonicVanguard Unfortunately this one is the premiere furniture design school in the US - their industrial design and interior design programs also rank in the top 5 nationally. So there are plenty of people that want to attend.

Ah I would have looked it up had the name of the school been given, or maybe I'm missing something here, everyone else seems to know which school your referring to. In that case these students really have no choice, kinda like here we have to pay an athletics fee whether we partake in sports or not to pay for athletic scholarships and what not. So I have to pay for these athletes tuitions as well as my own, lame. Granted its not a $4000 fee but it is quite a bit and I am very much against it, but atleast they are getting a laptop.

[mairving]

More and more schools are requiring laptops. We even have a private school that requires tablet PC's now. That is from 9th grade on up.

I am thinking that the idea was to get people to use MAC's at the school and make it a requirement since they could now run Windows using bootcamp. I guess that someone didn't read the fine print, eh?