If you enroll at Southwestern College in Kansas, they’ll hand you a laptop on your first day on campus.  

It’s the same story at West Liberty College in West Virginia, where the school’s President said, “We decided to put technology in the hands of the students instead of locking them up in a computer lab”.  

PC Mag lists nearly 50 colleges that will “rent” a free laptop.  For students, it’s a great way to get tech into their hands without spending out of pocket.

In England, “Universities hope to attract an estimated 130,000 students with a baffling range of enticements, including free laptops, subsidised accommodation, vouchers for bicycles, fee waivers and cash incentives.”

Handing out a free laptop for students undoubtedly has some educational merits.  We all know that computers are one of the best learning tools available and the idea of trying to make it through a half-decent college education without using the Internet is nothing short of laughable.

And making it “free” seems like a nice thing to do in light of that.  Consider this opinion:

A free laptop for students could make the difference between completing graduation or dropping out of college within the first year. As educational systems change the demands upon students and the methods in which students are expected to learn, those seeking to complete secondary educations need to have the tools to meet these demands without extreme financial hardships. 

It’s also a nice inducement to new students.  I’m sure that the colleges offering a free laptop for students made that decision with pedagogical concerns in the forefront of their eggheads, but you can bet your bottom tuition dollar that someone from the marketing department told them that it wouldn’t hurt in terms of new student recruitment.

But is the free laptop really a great idea?  There are some reasons to wonder.

First, we all know that there’s no such thing as a free lunch.  That’s particularly true at colleges, where new students are often compelled to buy a cafeteria “meal plan”.  It’s also true when you wander over to the computer lab.  Those laptops weren’t provided by manufacturers out of the goodness of their corporate hearts.  The school had to fork over cash and at least some of that cash is coming back in the form of tuition hikes.  Get it?  The “free” laptop is just an expense bundled into the standard “tuition and fees” bill.

So, if you’re a college-bound person with your own laptop, it seems a little strange to be contributing to the underwriting of free portables for your classmates, don’t you think?

Second, you have to wonder if the colleges who are doing this are supplying students with the laptops that best match their personal needs.  If you’re a graphics design student at a college who’s handing out bare-bones PCs, does that really help you out or are you going to need your tricked out Apple, anyway?  

Again, even if you never crack the seal on your low-end HP because you’re spending your nights tapping away on your Apple, you’re still paying for the laptop Billy the freshman is using to find new World of Warcraft cheats.  It just doesn’t seem all that fair.

A free laptop for students?  Well, it isn’t free.  And it isn’t necessarily the right laptop for each individual student.  There are some great reasons to support the idea of increasing access to technology, but there are some good reasons to worry about whether bundling a laptop along with other student fees is the best way to get the job done.