A laptop containing personal information of former Meridian Community College students has been stolen.

The laptop was stolen on Mar. 13 in New York state from an employee of SunGard Higher Education, a software company that provides IT services for MCC and dozens of other colleges nationwide.

After analyzing backup data, officials with SunGard and MCC determined that there was data for MCC on the computer.

Officials say they don't believe that identity theft was the reason for the incident, but they say among the information on the computer were the Social Security numbers of former students at the school.

MCC has sent letters to those students who are affected by the theft, and is recommending that those affected carefully review their credit reports as soon as possible.

To that end, SunGard is offering free credit monitoring services for a year, to make sure that nothing untoward has happened to any of the students.

SunGard has set up a Web site to try to answer the questions of any students who have been affected.