Other school systems are refurbishing their old computers instead of selling them. Computers for Education, an organization that serves the Cleveland metropolitan area, has refurbished more than 4,000 computers for inner-city schools. Schools are also recycling their computer equipment. States such as Massachusetts have banned computers from landfills, which has led some schools to consider this option. The Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition says only 6 percent of computers were recycled in 1998, but the group expects there will be more than 315 million obsolete computers by 2004.
Computers are composed of highly toxic materials, says the group.
The school must decide what kind of servers to use and whether to give its students a choice in selecting an e-mail provider. Nearly every college and university is wrestling with these issues now, although many officials say large colleges, with tens of thousands of students, are feeling more pressure to eliminate the cost of paper-based communication. Milliron does not believe that every aspect of the community college experience should be based on the Web. Rather, he says the Internet should be one of many channels open to students when they first contact a community college. The most important point, Milliron contends, is that the student has a strong interaction with the college and is treated as an individual and not as just another part of an efficient bureaucracy.