A social-networking environment gets students comfortable with a school well before freshman orientation, said Day. Prospective students can e-mail roommates, make friends and find out the best campus hangouts even before they accept admission.

Some universities use video downloads to introduce professors.

Apple's iTunes U--though met with skepticism among professors wary of freely distributing their valuable content--is a useful public relations tool, according to Rhonda Blackburn, assistant director at Texas A&M University. Professors have used it to post videos introducing themselves, their research and their classes.

Once students get to universities, the tools continue. Classes in which content is pushed out one way to students are becoming passe. Instead, instructors are beginning to distribute lecture content to encourage intellectual debate and research online--away from the classroom--and are using class time for more in-depth discussion.

Knauff said self-publishing tools are an enticing way to get college students to develop original thoughts as opposed to simply repeating what they think professors want to hear. Students are collectively creating glossaries and repositories for academic articles, audio files and videos.