Is this University BU?

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Back story here, what I'm about to post is a post from another forum, from a US university student, and I'd personally like some opinions. This was on a thread talking about Macs (it's an ice hockey forum so doubt anyone here posts there lol).

"We HAD to buy one for university. I'm not kidding; they can kick you out if you don't buy it + they charge you like triple the price for it than normal because it has "special university software" (which is complete BS besides the fact that they lock out certain administrator options and probably have some imbedded spyware on it)."

Now, correct me if I'm mis-reading this (have posted there too) but surely if this guy is paying for the thing, it's a personal machine and the University can't REALLY lock admin settings and things?

Or is this normal for a US university??

no clue. I wonder if any american mners will know. hope so. are there any american legal sites you could ask on too?

I don't know. It just seems very odd. We have to have our laptop's proxy's sorted by the IT bods before we can connect to wireless, but that's it. We also don't have to buy a Mac either (film production course). I do have one but that's my choice...

Hmm. I know some of the community colleges 'give' you a laptop and if you don't finish the course, you have to hand it back. Sort of an incentive to keep at it.

It sounds to me that what he means is that the university software has certain privileges/locks set, rather than the computer operating system (Windows?) itself? So he can only access data intended for him, his tutor group etc. and not see the university accounts for example.

It's not unfeasible that he could buy a laptop that is preinstalled with certain applications and has certain security settings. He could easily reinstall an operating system so there would be no point in selling him a dumbed down Windows.

Not really a legal issue imo.

Oh sorry, misread. You specified Macs. But same applies - just reinstall the OS.

I'm American and have a niece and a nephew currently at University and neither of them was required to buy a certain computer or the programmes through their universities. They each bought one through Amazon or some such and got the programmes they wanted.

I think this person is either full of it or misunderstood something.

Also, Apple have an education section whereby you get a discount on the store price - I have purchased all mine for DS and for my DD ( French keyboard no extra cost) through the Education dept, not in the US though. Sounds strange to me.