When Jenna Brown, a senior at Brenau University, needs to get in touch with one of her professors, she sends an e-mail.

And when Brown, who commutes to the Gainesville school from Buford, needs to call one of her classmates who lives on campus, she calls their cell phone, even though students who live in campus housing have their own land lines.

"I think I get a quicker response if I e-mail (a professor)" she said. "I just e-mail and set up an appointment time."

The Brenau students are typical of most around the country, turning to cell phones and other forms of electronic communication rather than relying on the old standby, the land line-based telephone. And some colleges, in the wake of budget tightening, are picking up on this.

For example at the University of Georgia, the physics and psychology departments have decided to get rid of dozens of phone lines. At about $20 a pop, that can quickly add up in savings for a cash-strapped department.

UGA's mathematics department is also considering cutting phone lines. That department spends between $1,500 and $2,000 a month just on phone service.

But down the road at Gainesville State College, recent changes to a voice-over IP system have allowed the college to cut its phone bill by roughly two-thirds, according to Brandon Haag, executive director of information technology at Gainesville State.

The school pays roughly $4,000 a month for all of its phone service, Haag said, which includes paying for the VOIP service itself as well as service for both the Oakwood and Oconee County campuses.

"We were very quickly outgrowing the capabilities (of) ‘normal' phones - without auto attendants and groups and the ability to route calls efficiently within our organization," he said. The college moved to the VOIP system in 2006. "We did transition from using an antiquated, plain old telephone system - POTS, that's what they usually call it - and that's what the state basically had available for us at the time."

Today, the phone systems at Gainesville State run over the college's already existing computer network, and while faculty and staff still use the old handsets, all call information can be viewed on the workstation's computer.

The transition has not only moved the entire college out of AT&T's local network and into its own system within campus, it also allowed the college to connect its Oconee campus as well, saving on what used to be long-distance phone calls.

"Each building has a point where all the phone lines come back to, and there's a piece of equipment that translates it into the analog phone line. And that keeps our phone system internal," Haag said. "It has allowed us to grow without adding any more to our monthly bill."

That same idea will be put in place later this year at North Georgia College & State University in Dahlonega, said Kate Maine, director of university relations at the school.

"We are currently working in conjunction with the Medical College of Georgia and Augusta State (College) to develop and ... switch from our traditional telephone system to a VOIP system," she said. "That request for proposal is supposed to be completed some time in March so we could hopefully switch over late this spring."

Maine said the change could cut the school's telephone costs by 30 percent a year, which adds up to about $90,000 to $100,000 a year in savings.

"We began looking at that earlier in the year when we were first getting instructions about budget costs," Maine added.

At Brenau, students who live in on-campus housing have a land line already connected to their dorm room, according to David Morrison, Brenau's director of communications. The school keeps those lines on mainly in case of an emergency, he said.

Nevertheless, Morrison said far fewer students opt for the land lines than used to.

"The lines already in each (dorm) have a voice mail box," he said. All it needs is to be set up.

"A lot of them don't even do that."

The Red & Black contributed to this report