My gut has been Git as well, since I have always used it in commercial development. My guess is that the companies the students are going to use Perforce or a commercial tool since most end up in energy / oil related companies that tend not to use open source at all. That said, I'll see if I can get more info on what they are using. I don't have control over the first class they take (yet) but I do agree with getting them started early. Most of the programs (CS,EE, etc.) don't even teach version control at all at the undergrad level, so I am doing what I can to remedy that issue.