Dell will not only continue, but will expand its linux offerings.
And, of course, reliability which I found to be excellent to start with, just keeps getting better. :-) And Ubuntu continues to receive a lot of attention (although I personally recommend exploring or, for the adventurous, even making your own personalized distro! :-) So, is your school preparing students for the future, or the past? ;-) How about this story from a previous Windows MSCE who switched to linux?
Well, I'm off to do some translation work in Open Office. Oh, I heard windows users are being called thieves by Microsoft, even if their software was purchased? It's amazing how much more productive linux users are, compared to those wasting time with MS problems. Glad I switched years ago.