First, take with a "grain of salt" what the IT folks say at school. Most of them have little to no training on Mac computers. That said, I would test the machine on another wireless system, preferably one that was open to the public like at a library or even Starbucks.
If the wireless capability turns out to be defective and your machine is still under warranty, Apple will repair it. Easy fix? Nothing on a portable computer is really an easy fix; it requires care, knowledge, and skill to dig into any notebook computer be it a MBP or an IBM Thinkpad.
Regards.