qgis - Is it possible to change the plugin folder location?

I am teaching a GIS course in a local collage using QGIS (qgis4w). The way our lab pc's work is that they delete all added material every start up from the C:\ drive. They also have a D:\ drive where data can be saved. My question is, is there a way to enable plugin installation in this configuration. I thought of something like moving the plugin definition file and the plugin folder to D:\