When Student Laptops Fall Behind, Campus IT Can Close the Gap

“This disconnect shows up as soon as coursework goes beyond web apps,” says Carney-Morris, the college’s director of educational technology and chair of the Association for Computing Machinery’s Special Interest Group on University and College Computing Services.

Budget devices can also struggle with statistical analysis, modeling, media production and geographic information systems. Before recommending a replacement, she suggests running the same assignment on a lab computer over wired Ethernet, then campus Wi-Fi, to isolate the problem.

“This helps identify if the bottleneck is the assignment, the network or the student’s device,” she says.

From there, IT teams can address the specific barrier while keeping students connected to coursework.

Forecast Needs With Faculty

Carney-Morris says she recommends aligning academic planning with institutional budget and equipment refresh cycles. At Lewis & Clark, summer lab refreshes make the end of spring term an important checkpoint with faculty, lab managers, security teams and service desk staff.

READ MORE: Device lifecycle services simplify hardware management.

Relationships with early adopters give IT advance notice of assignments and AI tools that might expose limitations in student-owned devices.

Ed Skoudis, president of the SANS Technology Institute, says he recommends testing faculty-created exercises on the hardware students use. Instructors working on powerful computers may not encounter the delays their students experience.

“When we design labs, we try to support systems as much as 3 or 4 years old,” he says.

Requirements also vary within disciplines. Digital forensics exercises may need substantial storage for memory and file system images, while penetration testing can demand more central processing unit and graphics processing unit (GPU) capacity.

Testing can reveal opportunities to reduce a data set or adjust software settings while preserving the learning objective. IT and faculty can explore those changes before raising device requirements.

Recommend What Students Actually Need

Jennifer Mathes, CEO of the Online Learning Consortium, recommends mapping computing requirements across programs and identifying when students will encounter more demanding applications.

DISCOVER: Device loaner programs expand hardware access.

“Recommendations should be reviewed regularly by IT and academic departments, but they should not automatically become more demanding simply because new technology is available,” she says.

Guidance should distinguish minimum specifications, recommended configurations and specialized program requirements. It should also explain when capabilities become necessary and whether shared resources offer an alternative.

In addition, AI coursework does not automatically require a new laptop, because browser-based AI services have different hardware demands from local model development or advanced data analysis, Mathes notes.

She recommends institutions assess whether investment in shared infrastructure would serve students better than requiring individual upgrades.

Match Resources to Coursework

Mathes says loaners can address temporary failures or short-term financial barriers, while shared labs support expensive specialized applications. Virtual desktops provide access to more powerful computing but depend on connectivity and licensing.

One-to-one programs can provide consistent access across a program, provided institutions establish sustainable funding. Budgets must include support, maintenance, replacement cycles and accessibility.

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Vito Rocco, chief technology and innovation strategist at Dell Technologies, says some larger institutions maintain loaner pools of 200 to 250 systems, absorbing the expense through student services.

“Virtual desktop infrastructure with GPU support allows students to access specialized applications without needing a high-end machine or a trip to a specialized lab,” he explains.

Coordinating those services requires departments to agree on what coursework demands and how students will obtain access.

“The budget conversation works best when IT, student services and department managers are aligned, treating device access as a shared institutional priority, not a siloed IT expense,” Rocco says.

Support Access, Measure Results

Nicole Muscanell, senior researcher at EDUCAUSE, cautions that providing equipment alone cannot resolve every access problem.

“In our research, the most common issue overall is access to internet and Wi-Fi, with students calling for increased reliability, speed and coverage across campus,” she says.

Help desks should clearly identify supported devices, applications and services, alongside routes for resolving problems beyond their scope. Expanded hours, self-service resources and after-hours triage can help students obtain assistance when assignments are due.

Institutions should measure whether students can use resources when needed and whether technology still interferes with coursework, Muscanell says.

UP NEXT: Higher ed networks must stand up to the requirements of AI.

“Ultimately, the goal is to reduce the technology-related friction that keeps students from fully participating in and completing their coursework,” she explains. 

At Lewis & Clark, Carney-Morris tracks technology-related emergency fund requests and faculty requests to address student access gaps, two metrics that she says can expose needs existing services have missed.

She emphasizes calm, nonjudgmental troubleshooting, asking permission before working on personal devices and offering alternatives when repairs are outside the help desk’s purview.

“The goal isn’t always to fix the device,” Carney-Morris says. “It’s to make sure the student can still participate in class.”