UW-Stout: To cut laptop fee for 2010-11 academic year

For details, contact:

Doug Mell

Executive Director of Communications and External Relations

715-232-1198

melld@uwstout.edu

Menomonie, Wis. — University of Wisconsin-Stout will cut the fee it charges for its popular e-Scholar, or laptop, program in the 2010-11 academic year, the second consecutive year that the fee has been reduced, Chancellor Charles W. Sorensen announced Thursday.

“We continue to reduce the cost to our students of this popular program, while we add to the quality of the technology and the software that we offer,” Sorensen said. “UW-Stout has been a leader nationwide in offering the latest technology to our students, and I am pleased that we again can reduce the cost of our e-Scholar program for our undergraduates.”

The announcement means that the cost of the e-Scholar program for 2010-11 will be 27 percent lower than the cost in the 2008-09 academic year. The annual cost to students taking 30 credits in 2010-11 will be $810, which is $300 less than it was two years ago.

For that fee, students receive a high-end Hewlett-Packard laptop computer, backpack and a variety of cords/accessories, as well as $4,000 in software, wireless and wired connectivity on campus, a course management system, service and support through the ASK5000 Help Desk, training, network storage, e-mail, Web page space and multimedia classrooms.

The program ensures that students and faculty have a standard set of tools — both hardware and software — that meets a majority of their wireless computing needs, thus producing a wireless laptop campus environment.

Students receive a new computer in their freshman year and receive another new machine in their junior year. Students who graduate can keep their laptop at no additional cost.

UW-Stout officials said the reduced cost of the e-Scholar program was driven by a number of factors, including a new contract with HP that reduced the cost of the laptops.

UW-Stout announced in December 2008 that it had reached an agreement on a $20 million, four-year contract with Hewlett-Packard to supply student laptop computers under the university’s e-Scholar program. About 14,000 laptops will be leased during the contract period — approximately 3,500 laptops each year based on enrollment projections.

In addition to hardware, the contract includes support and services. Technology will be upgraded with every new model year. HP will provide yearly support for a variety of institutional programs at UW-Stout.

“We are getting much better pricing from companies when we bid this,” said Diane Moen, vice chancellor for administrative and student life services. She said companies are more willing to offer competitive bids because UW-Stout’s e-Scholar program now has an established track record. The program began in 2002.

“There were a lot of skeptics when we began the program,” Sorensen said. “We now have a lot of survey data that shows our e-Scholar program has become an integral part of how we teach and learn at UW-Stout and the program has exceeded all of our expectations.”

For more on the latest assessment of the e-Scholar program, go to: http://www.uwstout.edu/static/bpa/ir/surveyresults/dlereportfa09.pdf.