My input to this thread: I haven't read it all, though.
When you kids go to college, get a good 1GB or something drive to use for keeping ALL your school work on. Carry it on your school keys if you live dorm-wise, or on your car keys so you ALWAYS have the drive. Working on stuff and home and school is complicated. And, I've had OS crashes that left me without a record of assignments, and I've had to lose points because I couldn't reproduce a copy for final project notebooks or stupid chit like that.
Plus, you'll be poor and not wanting to print and use your own ink. You have those files on the jump drive. Walk in, log on, open, print, unplug, log out - 45 seconds and you've got your print outs, simple as that.
Seriously, it'll be the best addition to your pocket for college. I also have NES/SNES/Genesis emulation on mine as well, I've played NES in class a few times, lol.