It's a simple truism: these days, everyone who doesn't own an iPod wants one-- and even more of them want a free one. We've done our part to help over the years, occasionally providing helpful tips on easy ways to score a 'Pod completely free of charge (perform at the Grammys, for example, or fly Air France), but the thirst for free iPods seems never to be slaked; indeed, if anything, it's growing every day. So what do we do now? Start pointing you folks towards potentially dodgy pyramid-type schemes like FreeiPods.com? Hardly; our advice is far less tacky: enroll at Duke University as a freshman in the Class of 2009.

"But AtAT," we hear you ask, "wasn't that 'free iPods to all Duke freshmen' thing last year just a pilot program?" Well, sure, but that's no reason to believe that the ship has sailed. We know, we know-- what are the odds that Duke professors would honestly incorporate creative iPod use into their curricula, or that students would use the iPods for anything other than shuffling through the oeuvre of Linkin Park while cramming for a calculus midterm? But amazingly enough, we're really starting to think that the iPods are going to get a big thumbs-up when the university issues its report on the pilot program next month.

Check it out: according to the Associated Press, Duke Center for Instructional Technology director Lynne O'Brien claims that the program is "going very well," with a couple of dozen classes having incorporated some sort of iPod-based integration since last fall-- mostly of the "download the lecture you slept through in class last Wednesday so you can sleep through it again in the comfort of your own room" variety, but some classes are, for instance, having students analyze waveforms of music snippets from their iPods, or use them to record interviews with people for writing projects. (All the Duke iPods came with Belkin voice recorders.) And apparently the whole experiment has been generating enough outside buzz that the school is getting "queries from textbook publishers, who might include more audio material with their print offerings as a result." So someone, at least, is taking the whole thing seriously.

So yeah, while the cynics in us originally pegged Duke's iPod program as a one-year grab for attention (both of the media and applicant varieties), it's sounding more and more like it might be renewed for the fall. So if your free-iPod-cravin' behind happens to be college-bound this year, you might consider applying to Duke, because all else being equal, we don't know of any other colleges out there willing to kick in a free 'Pod to sweeten the deal. Of course, there's no guarantee that the free iPod program will be renewed, you understand, and Duke's application cutoff was apparently January 14th, so you'll need to invent some sort of time machine if you really want to apply. But hey, isn't that a small price to pay to get a $299 iPod for free?