Campus tours used to be simple affairs: impress Mom and Dad with the gleaming new library, wow the applicant with the cool coed dorms. But today's colleges have a flashier scene to sell: "smart" classrooms equipped with video projectors, laptop computers and countless Internet ports; futuristic student centers with wireless networks; and fully wired dorms with fax machines and servers.

In the past few years, schools have been spiffing up and spending big on technology to enhance learning, ease student life and win attention from prospective applicants. This year alone U.S. colleges plan to invest $1.2 billion in hardware, 28% more than they spent last year, according to Dun & Bradstreet, a supplier of business information and research.

Today many college students turn to their computers for lecture notes, course registration, tuition bills and even their social life, instant messaging a friend who lives just down the hall and coordinating extracurricular clubs and activities via student-run Web pages. Schools are now ranked by technology magazines for how "wired" they are. And some colleges, like the University of Phoenix, confer degrees on students who have taken all their classes online.

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"There's been nothing short of an explosion," says Carol Twigg, who administers the Pew Learning and Technology Program at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, N.Y. "The use of technology and online learning is becoming mainstream." Just two or three years ago, most college technology initiatives were the experiments of a few crusading faculty members. Now, says Twigg, "many schools are making a commitment to weave technology into the academic program on a campus-wide basis, dramatically changing the learning dimension."

The first step for most schools is to guarantee that students have access to the hardware they need. That's where the big money is spent. At Buena Vista University in Storm Lake, Iowa, every incoming student and faculty member is given a Gateway Solo 2550 laptop. And starting this fall, students will be able to take those laptops with them anywhere on the 60-acre campus — to the library, the dorms, even the lakeside — and access the Internet. Tiny B.V.U., with just 1,250 students, is the first college to cover every inch of its campus with a wireless network. "Our hope is that this will strengthen the sense of community on campus," says Paul Bowers, assistant professor of mass communications and director of faculty development. "We're envisioning students working in groups more, because seating can be more flexible. We hope professors will be challenging themselves to really engage the students."

No small investment, the campus-wide upgrade called for creation of approximately 130 wireless access points across the grounds, each with a range of from 150 ft. to 250 ft. indoors and about 1,000 ft. outdoors. This much touted upgrade brings with it a tuition increase of about $1,000 a year, before financial aid. But to third-year student Libby Rau, the anytime, anywhere access to the Internet is worth the price. "We've grown up using this technology," Rau says of her generation. "It's so much a part of our lives, and we need to keep it that way to succeed in the job market when we graduate."

Another school arming its enrollees with the latest and greatest is Rensselaer. In September, after years of planning and a $9.3 million investment, R.P.I. will open its renovated student union, complete with its own wireless network. A new dorm, Barton Hall, is designed to mimic a modern business travelers' hotel, complete with fully wired conference rooms on each floor and work centers with fax machines, copiers and phones. Even the fitness center at R.P.I. is high tech. In the floor next to the cross trainers, treadmills and rowing machines are tiny data ports that allow students to virtually train with a partner across the room or across the country.

In the classroom at R.P.I., these kinds of technological tools are taken a step further, adding not just convenience but a whole new way of learning. In Burt Swersey's Inventor's Studio class, students are encouraged to come up with ideas for new inventions and turn them into reality in a workshop setting. The round room where Swersey conducts his class has several different workstations, each with two computer monitors. From their workstations, students can research patents online, send e-mail to an expert, create animated drawings of their inventions and project the animations from their computers to an overhead screen for class discussion. "They can work more intensely and more collaboratively," says Swersey. "I'm there as a guide, but the students are teaching each other."

Some colleges are taking advantage of technology's power to affect the academic environment outside the classroom. Last year at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Conn., the faculty introduced an electronic portfolio that each student keeps for all four years of school. In addition to serving as an online home base for e-mail, grades and financial data, the e-portfolio allows students to store personal academic information like term papers, math proofs, lab reports and artwork as well as notes on extracurricular activities, study abroad and career goals. "The personal portfolio is designed to serve as a reminder of accomplishments and aspirations," says Wesleyan president Douglas Bennet. "When you go to your adviser, there's a record. This makes the face time with faculty very high quality."

While at Wesleyan the Web is fostering better communication between students and faculty, at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va., video technology is enabling some young scholars to get in touch with people and places they would never have access to otherwise. Students can take a course on the United Nations in which they participate in weekly video conferences with actual U.N. ambassadors, beamed from their offices in New York City. The course is co-taught by Ahmad Kamal, Ambassador to the U.N. from Pakistan, who is in New York, and Sonja Taylor, a professor of public and international affairs at G.M.U. Each week the 25-member class discusses issues like trade, security, international law and the environment with a different panel of three or four top-level ambassadors chosen by Kamal. "The students get a very valuable, non-American perspective on the issues," says Taylor. "A course like this simply couldn't exist at G.M.U. without the two-way video technology. How would you ever get that group of people together outside the U.N.?"

Using technology to bridge physical barriers is also the basic premise of virtual classrooms, for which students log on from their home computers to hear from the professor, participate in discussions, take tests and turn in assignments. The idea of learning anywhere, anytime from big-time academic stars has some appeal. The virtual classroom is growing in popularity, with private companies, nonprofit organizations and many traditional colleges and universities all scrambling to offer courses online. But while learning from home is an attractive proposition for many people returning to school later in life, some educators believe it will never replace the young adult's experience of attending a traditional college. "The kinds of learning that matter, both to individuals and to a complex society, cannot be 'delivered,'" observes Carol Geary Schneider, president of the Association of American Colleges and Universities.

So while colleges continue to add impressive technological offerings to their campuses, the most important part of the campus tour will probably persist. Tomorrow's college freshmen will inevitably spend most of their campus visit checking out not the video screens in the library or the ethernet ports in the dorms. They'll be looking at the people who use them.

Source: TIME/The Princeton Review's The Best College For You 2001