The Associated Press' Lisa Cornwell notes that colleges and universities are starting to provide mobile services to their students.

"With nine out of 10 college students carrying cell phones -- and many of them using traditional landline phones rarely or not at all -- schools are seeking ways to maintain a line of communication while deploying technologies they believe students want and need," Cornwell writes.

The University of Cincinnati now offers all incoming freshmen a free mobile phone with the university's mascot on the welcome screen. "The landline probably will be obsolete in five years or so, and we want to be in the forefront of new technology," says university CIO frederick Siff. "Students don't carry laptops around constantly, but they always have their cell phones."

And at New Jersey's Montclair State University, students can use school-issued phones to get real-time alerts from the university, check class assignments, read the cafeteria menu, or track school shuttle buses using GPS. They can also activate a "Guardian" service, which automatically sends their location information to the police, if they feel threatened.

Still, there are some holdouts. Schools like Pennsylvania's University of Scranton, Cornwell writes, are dropping landline service in dorm rooms but aren't offering school-sponsored cell services as a replacement -- they're assuming students will already have their own cellular plans. "We considered issuing our own cell phone, but that would mean students could end up having two cell phones or having to discard their original one," says university CTO Jerry DeSanto.