Supportive Colleges

Technology & Laptop Programs

In 2005, going to college online was a luxury offered to students at prestigious universities or innovative schools. In 2023, things have migrated from luxury to necessity. Over 95% of colleges and universities in the United States offer at least one course through online study. In fact, over 65% of students state that online study is a Must have for college students.

Since online in integral to the student experience, we list colleges that excel at providing technology support to their students. This list is made of schools that offer laptops to incoming college students, loaners for existing students and cutting edge deals with select manufactures. Additionally, we have also included tech support programs because we all know that technology problems always occur around noon when everyone is around. We are kidding. If you have a tech emergency, your school should have the resources to support you.

Mental Health Support Programs

The omnipresence of digital screens is having a profound effect on our mental health. Colleges students today are older, have more work, family and course work. This is on top of de facto social media resposibilities. The increase in workload and the increase in screen time signals that we are reaching the upper limits of human brain capacity. Luckily, we highlight monthly select colleges nationwide that have instituted innovative mental wellness programs for their students. Awareness of mental health skyrocketed in the 2021 Olympics when Simone Biles courageously placed her mental health and well being ahead of personal acheivement. Her act of bravery created an overwhelming wave of support for mental health and allowed for innovative programs to take root.

We examine mental health support programs along three main categories:

Peer support programs
Individual referral programs
Mental wellness curriculum integration

Networking Programs

Networking. We all do it, but what is it? Networking is defined formally as the exchange of information and ideas amongst colleagues in a social setting. Social networking is a perfect example of this. Professionally, LinkedIn has emerged as the dominant networking tool, but there are international networking tools such as ASW (A Small World) and Nomad List for digital nomads. At Supportive Colleges, we took a deeper look at colleges that have woven networking into the fabric of their school. While this level of support appears to be intangible, by examining tangible items such as the number of registered alumni on social platform sites like Facebook, LinkedIn and Payscale, we can get a picture of their digital footprint. Combine this with integrated offline events and we can get a good glimpse into how active the college is in networking. Do not be alarmed by the disparity in the number of Facebook followers per school. What is most important, is the number of active alums in each school and the method in which each school activates their alumni population.

You will see the schools listed by their digital networking footprint and highlighted premier alumni networking events.