Having access to the right equipment and technologies is of increasing importance to students’ academic success. The quickening pace of innovation and development of collaborative technologies are obvious drivers. While having access to the right technology might be as simple as owning a smartphone (95% of students do according to ECAR), it often requires more. Consider tablets – incredibly useful and popular for group study and interaction – yet here ownership already drops to only 40%. By the time we begin to consider the areas of AR and VR, we see ownership of the necessary headsets dropping to only 4%. So access often falls short of meeting needs.

Consider these requirements in an environment where students are often maxed out on student loans and it’s easy to see the pressures resting on institutions to arrange access to the required resources. This is leading to much greater importance being placed on the role of loaner pools in higher education...