If the computers at your University have BIOS passwords it's possible that you won't be able to boot Tails without knowing it.

Wait: are you talking about a "true" pre-boot password or you just need a password to change the boot device order? IF so, and IF they set the floppy (IF any) to boot before the HD, you could start Tails via Smart Boot Manager or a similar tool. There are many IFs, but that's how I did it.

I talked to the guy in the central computer lab/help center and he talked to the people who set up the system. They said they put a pre-boot password on there so that no one can install anything on the computers (which also explains why firefox asks me to update it every time I log onto the computer).

I specifically asked him if I could run a linux live CD or two to test out the operating systems and he said "absolutely not." He laughed like a jerk and said, "Why don't you go screw up your own computer and use our computers as they were meant to be used?"

I guess he means for gmail and facebook, because that's what is usually on them.

Q

You can use PLOP Boot CD or floppy if the bios will let you boot from any other device. Press F12 (on most computers) at the boot prompt.

If that does not work you are going to have to open the case up (with permission of course) and remove the CMOS battery (looks like a watch battery) turn the computer on. this should reset the BIOS. Set a new password (with permission of course) or just leave it blank. turn the computer off then put the battery back in. boot the computer and go into the bios (F2 or ESC on most computers) and enable booting from the USB or CD (you may not have to do this step because it should be enabled by default). If enabled just press F12 at the boot prompt and select CD or USB to boot from.

you can use different tools to discover password.
1) ntpasswd (Offline NT Password & Registry Editor)
2) ophcrak
3) UBCD4Win or Ultimate Boot CD
4) Hirens BootCD
maybe you administrator use the same password for windows and bios. I think windows xp you can discover password very easy but for windows 7, you can only reset, make new password.
as people said, you can try to open pc case and move baterry and in that way you will restart bios password or you will restart order of booting devices (when I tried, bios was locked again when I boot pc, but order of booting was changed and I could boot from CD, so, i could not change bios password, I could not discover it, but after moving battery and switching off pc from electricity (20 minutes), I could boot from CD).

We have a planned solution for your scenario, namely to ?include something like portable virtualbox in the image so you can boot Tails in a virtual machine inside the operating system running on public computers.