The funny thing is that I went undergrad to some big name tech school in the late 70s and you barely had access to computers without a specific need or for specific coursework. (I took FORTRAN using punch cards and a mainframe.) At Dartmouth for grad school, access to computing resources was much more democratized, even though I was working in material science.

The reason for that is simple. money.

In my first year FORTRAN or cards as you say then the University department bought a mini and used BASIC.

About the next year the joint computer facility (i.e. non-EE/CS) got a VAX but I never had a particular reason to get an account.

Looking back, the EECS department was actually a pretty active center for computer-related research. But computers weren't widely-used elsewhere at the time.