I think for students renting may be win/win. If only taking spring and fall courses, a laptop for ~$60 per semester would be cool. This is assuming that it can be given up easily.
I'd be really skeptical about them making it that flexible. There has to be some minimum timeframe involved to make it profitable.
Maybe so. Although, it would be a relatively small loss for them if they were to provide this ability and eat the cost not covered. Many companies have been successful at using a campus to spread adoption, gain market info, etc.
Others have pointed out that this will increase the dominance of both Chrome and Google Docs/other Google apps. Perhaps Google looks at it as a loss leader to drive adoption on the real money maker, ads from Google.