Study finds gap in student computer ownership

If you're surprised by the number of students who have to use Van Pelt Library's computers to complete their work, just be thankful you're not at Penn State.

According to a new study, the digital divide is reaching into higher education, reflecting a gap in computer ownership and funding between public and private colleges and universities.

At the beginning of the month, Educause, a nonprofit organization that studies how information technology can be used to enhance higher education, released a report surveying campus computing environments. It detailed a substantial difference between public and private research universities nationwide.

It studied a representative sample of 621 institutions across America, including Penn. The report used Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching classifications, which separates schools according to how many and what kind of terminal degrees are offered annually.

"It's really the database rather than the report that's critical," said Peter DeBlois, director of communication at Educause. He said that the questionnaire sent to the schools was used to create a database that allows the member institutions to create personalized peer groups. By comparing their computing information to those of the customized group, schools would be able to determine the best ways to improve their computing capacities.

The report concluded that although 50 percent of college students had computers, ownership hovered around 84 percent at private doctoral research universities, and only at 38 percent at all public institutions.

Regardless of institution type, students attending public schools had ownership rates 20 percent lower than students at private institutions. The report concluded that this is due to relative affluence between students attending public universities and those attending private institutions.

"Schools with low rates of personal computer ownership have spent large amounts of money to improve public computing," DeBlois said.

Over 95 percent of Penn students own computers, Director of Finance and Planning for Information Systems and Computing Marilyn Jost wrote in an e-mail.

According to school policy, every Drexel University student should own or lease his or her own computer, according to John Bielec, vice president for Information Resources and Technology at Drexel.

The report also found that the type and level of tech support varied among institutions. In general, the information technology support was highest among doctoral institutions, and lowest in community colleges. A help desk is available for an average of 82.5 hours a week at doctoral universities, but only 53.9 hours a week at community colleges.

E-mail access is also an issue since it "determines whether or not faculty and/or administrators can count on being able to reach all students in a particular class," the report stated. Ninety-one percent of doctoral research institutions gave e-mail to every student, while only 55 percent of community colleges did so.

The study also detailed the total computer-related expenditures by institutions per each full-time student. Here, the differences were not vast --the average doctoral university spent $1,118 per full-time student, while the average bachelor's college spent $919.

"I think [the divide] should be taken care of at the government level," College senior Jaime Arafin said.

When asked if allowing students from less well-funded institutions in the area to use Penn's computers in the library would be a problem, Arafin replied, "I don't think so because most people here have their own computers."

Please note All comments are eligible for publication in The Daily Pennsylvanian.