What do Penn State students want?

Well, Mel Gibson isn't here to enlighten us about students, women or otherwise. So it's up to administrators, for the most part, to find out on their own.

A student issue that's been on the books for a while now is file sharing.

Poor college students want free music -- the problem is that downloading MP3s is dangerously straddling the line of illegality.

Now Penn State President Graham Spanier is proposing that the university get involved with a file-sharing service for which a one-time fee allows unlimited access.

On the surface this sounds like a great idea: students can get their music and listen to it, too, without having to worry about being arrested or charged hefty fines.

But there are problems with this system.

First, how would Penn State pay for the subscription?

Does it come out of student's pockets?

If so -- should everyone be required to pay for a service that not everyone is going to use? If the file-sharing system is only accessible through the Penn State network, should off-campus students be paying for the service, as well?

If Penn State does decide to subscribe to this service, they need to make sure that it is either available to all students to use, or, if it is only available on the Penn State network, that it is charged through room and board costs, so that only those living on campus will be paying for it.

The other problem with these file-sharing services is that they usually offer less content than the other, illegal services.

Students might still resort to these other file-sharing services, anyway, in order to get the files they want.

Also, bandwidth tended to be an issue in the past when students were sharing files.

If Penn State allows students unlimited access to a file-sharing service, administrators should make sure first that the network would not become slow and clogged due to massive amounts of downloading.

It is good to see that student's issues are being discussed and worked on by Spanier and the other members of the administration.

We just hope they have figured out the best possible solution to their problems, and consider the decisions carefully.