MIT IS&T discontinues iPad loaner program for all MIT community members
Zac Burton ’26: “Unilateral decisions that lack consultation from the people whom they impact are ridiculous”
Vivian Hir–The Tech
In mid-May, the MIT Informations System & Technology (IS&T) department updated their computing equipment loaner page to state that the “COVID-era iPad loaner program has been discontinued for all MIT community members.” The webpage did not specify the date of the announcement, and IS&T did not send out an email about this change to MIT students. Furthermore, the Knowledge Base pages for the student iPad loaner program and student loaner iPad remote management are no longer available.
The iPad loaner program, first announced in a letter from former president Rafael Reif in July 2020, was launched to help undergraduate students and graduate TAs smoothly transition to remote learning and teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic. According to MIT’s 2020 Town Gown Report, IS&T distributed almost 4,000 iPads to students in 50 states and 73 countries and territories in the 2020-2021 academic year.
According to an email statement from IS&T Associate Vice President of Technology Olu Brown, IS&T decided to discontinue the iPad loaner program because of lower student demand over the years. “With on-campus instruction fully restored, with fewer requests for iPads, and due to the age of the tablets, it was an appropriate time to phase out this offering,” he wrote. Brown stated that the decision was not related to departmental funding cuts. IS&T has yet to determine what will happen to returned iPads.
Although the iPad loaner program has ended, Brown clarified that undergraduate students in the classes of 2026, 2027, and 2028 can continue to use their loaner iPads until they graduate. IS&T continues to offer its student loaner laptop program for undergraduate students who need a laptop for academic purposes.
While some students take paper notes or own personal digital note-taking devices, including iPads, several students said that their learning experience at MIT would be significantly different if the loaner iPad program did not exist in an online survey from The Tech.
“I found it much easier to copy and paste, resize, and take organized notes compared to traditional pencil and paper,” Lauren Higgins ’26 wrote. Similar to Higgins, Zheming Zhang ’27 saves time by using his iPad for note-taking, as he does not have to “fully handwrite notes” or “physically manage multiple notebooks.”
Students also appreciated that the loaner program helped them save money. “I couldn’t afford my own iPad, and I was grateful that MIT offered the loaner iPad so I could keep up with my peers,” Higgins wrote. Higgins also said that the discontinuation of the program would “only serve to further inequity,” since she believes that students who can’t afford to buy an iPad “will be at a disadvantage.” Caleb Pascale ’28 also shared this concern, stating that the program has been a “huge resource for low-income students.”
Zac Burton ’26, a student with ADHD, finds the iPad to be a valuable tool because it can organize his notes all in one place. Upon hearing the news, he was disappointed. “Unilateral decisions that lack consultation from the people whom they impact are ridiculous,” Burton wrote.