Originally posted by tibbitts I think digital is remarkably cheaper than film. Remember, "student" implies "trial and error", and there is nothing better at that than digital. To the extent that you can buy a film camera at all, they don't cost enough more than a previous generation digital to make up for the cost of a semester's film, paper, and chemicals. In fact, K100 and K1000 prices aren't that far apart, perhaps partly due to the cult status and academic "push" behind the K1000.
Actually, old mechanical SLRs very suitable to learn on are things easily loaned to students or given away, (I used to just fix such things up and pass em on,) and they pretty much just keep going. The *point* of teaching photography as more than snapshooting is less about trial and error than taking one's time for definitive results. Being a more experienced shooter is just about how *fast you can take your time,* not just spray and pray. (mostly)
A DSLR, glass, computers, monitors, programs, printers, inks, papers, calibrations, programmming interpretations, are all things that just mean a big initial outlay and a bunch of skills which are not the basics, ...quantity of potentially-random 'trial and error' while not knowing what's happening isn't really teaching the craft, especially not when you can get ten rolls of Arista Premium for twenty bucks and chemistry and materials for not *that* much more.
It really makes more sense to stop and think about what you're doing at any stage than try to outguess automated results that seem arbitrary, until you learn about *those* at least. I've been a photog since I was in my mid-teens and the digital's a whole other learning curve, even just to see what you've actually got at any given stage.
The economy of it isn't really in learning, or in the quantities of output most students actually make in a semester. The outlay for digital is only economical after much bigger quantity, and the vagueness of it isn't the best way to get people focused on the photographic basics and learning them for real.
Some of the expenses issues of digital outlay are getting better: if people already have substantial computers, for instance, and are facile with them. ....it's certainly still the factor that with digital, it's not the most basic models that come with the basic manual controls... It's the opposite, actually, but things like K20ds are getting more reasonable, I think, and they seem they'd make good student cameras with say, the new 35/2.4 on there, preferably given the right focusing screen.
If people already have computers and digital stuff, you can teach them *some* photography, (some, you can teach with a P&S, actually) but it's a few layers removed from the basics, still.) Inconsistent exposure that you can't go back and fix does a lot to actually put the mind on what's going on, rather than considering the camera a mystery-box one has little idea what it even actually does.