Bryant & Stratton College Supports 1,800 Monthly Laptop Loans with ForwardPass

As Bryant & Stratton College works through a multi-year, campus-by-campus BYOD rollout across 16 campuses in four states, 15 ForwardPass Smart Lockers are helping students stay connected when laptops break, batteries die or chargers get left at home.

Together, the kiosks support around 1,800 laptop loans each month while giving IT clear visibility into every device.

Background

Bryant & Stratton College operates 16 campuses across Wisconsin, Ohio, New York and Virginia, plus a system office and an online division. According to System IT Manager Michael Nakonachny, the college’s total student population is approaching 17,000.

Michael oversees on-site IT support across the organisation. It is a varied environment: one campus serves around 100 students, while another serves approximately 1,200.

That range matters as the college moves toward a Bring Your Own Device model. Each campus needs enough backup technology to keep students learning, without filling every classroom with college-owned computers.

The challenge

Bryant & Stratton’s previous setup centered on traditional computer labs and college-owned devices in selected classrooms. It was not a true one-to-one program where every student received a laptop.

But technology was becoming essential in more classes. Nursing students, for example, increasingly needed devices for online tests and assessments connected to the college’s learning management system.

At the same time, students were already choosing to use their own computers.

“We were finding our keyboards and mice pushed out of the way, or laptops that were in classrooms just closed,” Michael said. Students were unplugging college equipment to charge their own devices instead.

Moving to BYOD made sense. The challenge was making sure a forgotten charger or broken laptop did not cause a student to miss a test, assignment or class.

The college had laptop carts available, but the borrowing process was difficult to control. Michael described it as a “free-for-all.” At one campus, Bryant & Stratton could be missing 30 to 40 laptops at the end of every semester.

Tracking them down took time. IT staff had to identify the missing assets, review login records, work out who had last used each laptop and then ask the academic team to follow up with students.

In one memorable case, a student returned seven laptops to the front desk at once. The student had apparently borrowed another device whenever a battery died without returning the previous one.

As laptops “wandered,” the problem also began to affect classes. A pool that started with 40 to 50 devices became smaller throughout the semester, leaving fewer laptops available when students needed them.

The solution

Bryant & Stratton started small, placing a five-bay smart locker at a campus that had adopted BYOD ahead of the wider college rollout.

That pilot became the starting point for a multi-year, campus-by-campus project. Bryant & Stratton did not move every location to BYOD at once. Instead, the IT team planned each transition around the college’s existing classroom hardware refresh cycle.

The timing mattered. Bryant & Stratton aims to get about five years of use from its classroom technology, so replacing computers shortly before removing them would not have made sense. As each campus reached the right point in its refresh cycle, it could move away from fixed classroom equipment and introduce ForwardPass Smart Lockers as part of the new model.

“We’ve been marrying kiosks to every new rollout of Bring Your Own Device,” Michael said.

Today, the college has 15 kiosks. Together, they handle around 1,800 loans per month.

The lockers are placed in open, easy-to-reach areas such as student lounges, learning resource centers and hallways. Larger campuses may have two units, depending on the size and layout of the building.

Students sign in using their Bryant & Stratton single sign-on account, collect a laptop and return it when they are finished. The system allows only one active loan per student, so a borrower cannot keep taking additional devices without returning the first one.

Loans are due by 10:00 p.m. If a laptop is not returned, both the student and IT receive an email.

The process is designed for short-term situations: a student forgot a device, left a charger at home or had a laptop fail during the day. It is not intended to replace owning a computer.

Students no longer need to find an IT staff member before they can get back to work.

“They’ve got a quick resource,” Michael said. “They know that they can log in using their single sign-on account for the college, access the device and be right back in class in minutes.”

The results

At the campus that had struggled most with missing equipment, Bryant & Stratton replaced approximately 40 to 50 laptops in carts with one 15-bay tower.

The smaller pool has been enough because the devices are now accounted for and regularly returned. Michael said the campus had lost only one device over the previous year, compared with 30 to 40 missing at the end of a typical semester under the old process.

For Michael, though, loss prevention was not the main goal.

“The availability of equipment to our students was the ultimately biggest push for us,” he said. “The loss prevention was an added bonus.”

ForwardPass has also taken much of the detective work out of managing the loan program. IT staff can see who borrowed each device, when it is due and whether it has been returned.

“They love it because they’re not trying to pull asset logs anymore and see when things are missing,” Michael said. “Running inventory on a regular basis is now a thing of the past.”

The reporting gives campus leaders a clearer picture of how the service is being used. Each month, IT shares loan activity with campus directors, including information about students Michael calls “frequent flyers.”

Those conversations are not simply about limiting access. They help the college identify students who may not have reliable technology at home and make sure they have the support they need to succeed.

Usage data also helps Michael decide whether a campus needs another kiosk or whether an existing one should be moved closer to the busiest classes. At larger campuses, location can make a noticeable difference. If a student has to walk halfway across the building to get a device, the instructor quickly feels the disruption.

The same data makes it easier to explain new requests to senior leadership. Instead of relying on assumptions, the team can show when all available laptops are being used and where demand is coming from.

And for an IT team, the lack of complaints can be a result in itself.

“No news is good news in our world,” Michael said. “Nobody tells us when everything is going well. Everybody tells us when everything is going wrong and on fire. The lack of feedback or the lack of concern speaks volumes.”

Looking ahead

Bryant & Stratton is entering the final stages of its multi-year BYOD project, with college-wide completion planned for January 2027.

The phased approach has allowed the IT team to introduce BYOD at a pace that makes sense for each campus, rather than replacing classroom technology before the end of its useful life. As more locations complete the transition, ForwardPass will continue to provide the backup students need when their own technology is temporarily unavailable.

For Bryant & Stratton, the lockers have created a simple balance: students can get a laptop quickly, while IT still knows where every device is.

“Whether you’ve got kiosks spread across a single campus or multiple states,” Michael said, “the visibility is imperative.”

Beyond improving device management, the ForwardPass solution helps ensure students have reliable access to the technology they need to stay engaged in class, complete coursework, and remain on track toward their educational goals. Supporting student success is at the heart of Bryant & Stratton College’s mission and value proposition, and solutions like ForwardPass helps support that commitment by giving students quick access to the technology they need to stay on track with their coursework and minimise disruptions to their learning.