My mom worked at a university when she bought me the C64 and the starter kit. Towards the end of this period, I was going to university. We did not have that type of access.

Some doubtless had access to the Internet in the late 70s/early 80s but random students generally did not even at universities that were connected to the Internet. When I was in school I remember someone at the AI Lab printing out a long Usenet thread related to Star Wars but I certainly didn’t have access. Indeed, outside of one class, I barely used a computer undergrad even as a non-CS engineering major.