have gotten a helping hand. Currently, as college tuition rises, community colleges are seeing a large spike in enrollment. More than one in three postsec- ondary students spend some time in communitycolleges. Community colleges are particularly important for students who are older, working or need remedial classes. Many of them have no computers or only dated, obsolete ones that can’t be taken to class, so widely available technology on campuses is critical to their success. Computer labs and classroom technology remain an important part of community college service and educationalofferings but campuses often don’t have a lot of moneyto spend on technology. Several schools, however, have found an answer. Here are two inspiring examples: With enrollment skyrocketing, Los Angeles Community College District (LACCD), the largest community college district in the country, had to expand. Through a $6 billion construction boom,it had to equip an additional building every month for six months with new technology and do so affordably. “We had the same problems everyone else is having: demand for more and higher-quality services over longer periods of time— without commensurate increases in budgetsor staffing,” said Jorge Mata, CIO ofthe district. “In addi- tion, we needed to align with the district’s environmentalvision.” They decided to outfit the school with HP thin client computers, devices that contain enough infor- mation to start up and connect to a more powerful network server that provides the rest of the computing With community college attendancerising, the need for affordable technology increases as well. horsepower. This gives students and faculty a personalized computer environment anywhere in the network, lets technology staff manage computers remotely and has cut overall technology power consumption, making the solution a win all around. *Merced College, in Merced, California, also needed to find a way to improve technology reliability while cutting costs in order to provide access to the increasing number of new students without raising tuition. “The biggest thing is finding ways to purchase what we need to keep our technology current,” explained Donald Peterson, director of IT. “It’s hard in any state environment and it’s now harder and hardereach year.” Peterson decided to replace the assorted technology brands that the college had with HP equipment in a budget-friendly strategy. The equipment standardization has made it easier for students and teachers to become confident when using the technology equipment and hasprovided a stable and reliable environment for the colleges’ IT staff.
