Buy College Education, Get Free iBook

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.

Comments

At least they are the new ones

[Cheeziologist]

At least they are giving away the new ibooks. If they gave away the old school ibooks then they would never need to spend money out of the maintenence budget for toilet seats

Two years?

[mlknowle]

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?

ahh

[russellh]

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

spin it around

[ccnull]

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!

In Soviet Russia

[LX.onesizebigger]

You give school iBook!

Re:In Soviet Russia

[poot_rootbeer]

In Soviet Russia, FUNNY FIFTEEN YEARS AGO stopped being THIS JOKE!

Re:In Soviet Russia

[tigertigr]

In olden days, you give teacher an apple!

Re:In Soviet Russia

[SoupIsGoodFood_42]

In Soviet Russia, joke tell YOU when it's stopped being funny!

Ah, modern life

[Snowdog668]

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

Re:Ah, modern life

[russellh]

Heck, if we wanted to change the channel we had to walk two miles, through ten feet of snow, barefoot. /dream sequence

And they won't be impressed. they'll ask: what's snow?

Lending credibility

[Anonymous Coward]

To the above two statements about doorstops and toilet seats:

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

Let's be fair...

[pXgray]

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?

crufty iBooks?

[AragornSonOfArathorn]

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? ;-)

Re:How much does Leo University cost?

[joib]

With that kind of price difference, he could even buy a beowulf cluster of those lapt... *smack*

*ouch*

*wince*

Re:How much does Leo University cost?

[MentlFlos]

Well, I'm very proud to say that my father is the quoted VP who set all this up. I just left a voicemail on his cell phone and when he gets back to me I'll ask what tuition costs there.

Quite the shock to check /. and see yer dad on the front page :)

Confuscious say

[Anonymous Coward]

Man with free laptop merely waiting for dancer.

Retroactive?

[grub]

Steve Jobs
Apple Computer

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

Thank you,

grubby

Re:Great idea... here's why:

[gsfprez]

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)

Could be worse, it could have been 60 minutes

[kfg]

For that matter, I once ran across Sally Jessie Raphael while flipping channels and recognized a friend's wife as a guest. The topic of the show?

Married Prostitutes. I'm not making that up. The friend died of AIDS last year.

KFG

Switch

[foxtrot]

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

fdisk anyone?

[Anonymous Coward]

We got Thinkpads at the college I went to. I formatted it and installed Redhat as soon as I got it. I left the school after one semester and gave the laptop back. I've been contacted by them 5 or 6 times since (that was fall of 2000) demanding that I pay them for the machine I "broke" because they can't figure it how to reimage it.

Every port you could ever want

[Leeji]

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." :)

Re:great motivators for my research students

[micromoog]

. . . My name is Jim and I'm a college professor.