Next fall, 5,000 students in dorms will be able to down load the music files to their computers on the UW server.

Students already like the free price.

"Exactly, take advantage of the opportunity. I think it's a good thing for the university," said student Spider Gaines.

Napster has similar deals with 13 other colleges nationwide. But this is the first time a partnership has included a hardware provider. Dell will install the servers, taking pressure of the university's network.

The pilot project will only allow students to download music onto their computers -- not disks or portable music players.

That makes some students wary about using the free service.

"Personally I don't really know, because I don't want to get any viruses on my computer and I don't know how it works as far as viruses go," explained student Crystal Gunder.

But the University of Washington's computer services department says the deal will actually increases computer security.

"Just because if students are getting their music form a known source, it means it's not going to be infected with viruses or Trojan horses or other things," said Oren Sreebny, Director of Client Services with the UW.

"I'm hearing it's going to be a great opportunity; that they are going to get all the freebies they want and then it might be taken a way, just to get people hooked," laughed student Melissa Edwards.

The Napster pilot is only a year long. Then the school and companies will decide whether to extend it indefinitely.

The service will only be available to students living in residence halls. The university is working with Napster to make it available for all students, faculty and staff -- only for them it likely won't be free.

The music downloads won't work on Macintosh computers. The university is working with Apple to see if it would like to off a campus program as well.