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From: john@x.UUCP (John Woods)
Newsgroups: net.college,net.cse,net.micro,net.micro.pc
Subject: Re: Univ. of VT chooses AT&T pc's
Message-ID: <476@x.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 25-Apr-85 09:46:49 EST
Article-I.D.: x.476
Posted: Thu Apr 25 09:46:49 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 27-Apr-85 04:33:12 EST
References: <376@uvm-cs.UUCP> <285@h-sc1.UUCP> <387@ho95b.UUCP>
Organization: Charles River Data Systems, Framingham MA
Lines: 32
Xref: watmath net.college:695 net.cse:366 net.micro:10143 net.micro.pc:3773

> > > Burlington, Vermont; .... Incoming freshmen ...will be required to
> > > purchase [AT&T 6300 PC] starting in the fall of 1985. Students will
> 
> Requiring freshmen in technical fields to purchase PCs of one sort or
> another is becoming increasingly common, and it's not a bad thing.

Requiring freshmen to purchase PCs of one particular sort is becoming
increasingly common, and it is the most heinous thing to come around in
a few years.  The tuition at my Alma Mommy (MIT) is way over $10K now (and
financial aid is getting scarcer by the minute), and now some bozo comes
along and suggests that each student buy some inadequate UBM PC for another
$NK (oh, great, you get to pay $N/4 K per year -- big help if you are barely
making it on scholarships).  Fortunately, MIT has not yet required this, and
there is (last I heard) no effort to do so *.

Making PCs of some flavor available for cheap purchase is fine; even better
is for the school to also HAVE PCs available so that students who can't afford
them can get them.  But telling students, "Now that you're here, shell out
another large chunk of money to this random company that we're really greasy
with", no, that is unacceptable.

----------------
* However, there was talk of making the computers that EECS students build in
the Computer Architectures course (6.004 now, a course on the required list)
available for inexpensive purchase, and those who don't purchase them can use
them for their N remaining years.  I don't know how this came out, though.
Note that this plan completely lacks coercion!
-- 
John Woods, Charles River Data Systems, Framingham MA, (617) 626-1101
...!decvax!frog!john, ...!mit-eddie!jfw, jfw%mit-ccc@MIT-XX.ARPA

You can't spell "vile" without "vi".