Education Discount

[gujar]

What is the procedure for getting an education discount?
Can you buy a mac for family member (minor) and still get discount?
What documentation you a have to provide?

[tsk]

I don't think it's a problem as long as you keep in mind you are only allowed so many purchases per year. Technically it's supposed to be for your own use but no one's going to come check on you.

As I recall it's per school year also so if you haven't bought something this year, the academic year ends soon.

The verification I believe is pretty lax but I've heard they check your name with the university.

Quote:

Who is Eligible To Purchase
The following education individuals are eligible to purchase through the Apple Store for Education individuals:

* Faculty or staff member of a public or private Higher Education Institution in the United States
* Student currently attending or accepted into a public or private Higher Education Institution in the United States

Qualifying purchases per academic school year (July 1 - June 30):

* Power Mac, iMac, eMac, PowerBook, or iBook - One per year
* Printers - One per year
* Displays - Two per year
* Software - Two per year



Agreement
I agree that I am a member of one of the defined groups above eligible to purchase and that the products being purchased direct from Apple Computer, Inc. are for my own personal, education, and/or research use.

[wordmunger]

If you go to the apple store you have to show them your college I.D. They don't ask who's going to use whatever you buy. At the physical stores, you can't buy software with it (with the exception of iLife). When I've bought stuff online I just had to enter my college e-mail address, and they somehow verified that. I've also heard that they occasionally check with your institution to see if you're still registered. But after the fact, as far as I know, there's no effort to make sure the "official" student is the one using the hardware/software.

[wdlove]

What is the procedure for getting an education discount?
Can you buy a mac for family member (minor) and still get discount?
What documentation you a have to provide?

You need to be a student or teacher, with a valid ID. The Mac could be for anyone, Apple wouldn't really know. You can only purchase one Mac a year. It's from July 1st to June 30th.

[applebum]

You need to be a student or teacher, with a valid ID. The Mac could be for anyone, Apple wouldn't really know. You can only purchase one Mac a year. It's from July 1st to June 30th.

Or staff. Bought several things with the Edu discount and never been asked for any kind of proof. I use my home e-mail address so they didn't check it that way. In fact they never even asked if I was faculty, student, or staff.

[wordmunger]

Anyone know the answer to this one? If you are a faculty member purchasing machines for a professional capacity--your office, your labs--does that count towards your one machine/year allotment? Or can you still buy a computer for home use in addition to your professional machines? It seems to me the discount would be self-defeating if you couldn't.

[RBMaraman]

Anyone know the answer to this one? If you are a faculty member purchasing machines for a professional capacity--your office, your labs--does that count towards your one machine/year allotment? Or can you still buy a computer for home use in addition to your professional machines? It seems to me the discount would be self-defeating if you couldn't.

When you go to the Apple Online Store and click on education, there are two options:

1. Shop for yourself (the 1 Mac per year option).
2. Shop for your school (unlimited number of machines for school labs, offices, etc.)

So, choose the shop for yourself option when buying your personal machines, and the shop for school when purchasing for a school.

[joshuajestelle]

Another thing to keep in mind.... if you're a Computer Science student.... or anything similar, probably any kind of technological field and you could do it...

You can join the Apple Developer's Network for $99. Which then in turn will give you a single "asset" for a hardware purchase. This asset entitles you to 20% off a single purchase.

I purchased my 17" Powerbook, an Airport Extreme Basestation, an extra power adapter, and I forget what else... all in the same order and got the 20% off everything. That results in far more savings than the $99 original cost of joining the developer's network, and I think if you work it out saves you more than the regular edu discount.

One other caveat though, I believe you can only do this once. If you signed up again for the Developer's network, they wouldn't give you another hardware purchase asset. I could be wrong though.

Josh

[tsk]

Anyone know the answer to this one? If you are a faculty member purchasing machines for a professional capacity--your office, your labs--does that count towards your one machine/year allotment? Or can you still buy a computer for home use in addition to your professional machines? It seems to me the discount would be self-defeating if you couldn't.

In general the school would be purchasing the stuff so the discount could be applied to your own personal equipment.

The way it works here is that the professor would talk to the financial people and they'd buy it through the university account and then debit the grant or funding source.

[gujar]

Another thing to keep in mind.... if you're a Computer Science student.... or anything similar, probably any kind of technological field and you could do it...

You can join the Apple Developer's Network for $99. Which then in turn will give you a single "asset" for a hardware purchase. This asset entitles you to 20% off a single purchase.

I purchased my 17" Powerbook, an Airport Extreme Basestation, an extra power adapter, and I forget what else... all in the same order and got the 20% off everything. That results in far more savings than the $99 original cost of joining the developer's network, and I think if you work it out saves you more than the regular edu discount.

One other caveat though, I believe you can only do this once. If you signed up again for the Developer's network, they wouldn't give you another hardware purchase asset. I could be wrong though.

Josh



How do you join the developer's network?

[jxyama]

When you go to the Apple Online Store and click on education, there are two options:

1. Shop for yourself (the 1 Mac per year option).
2. Shop for your school (unlimited number of machines for school labs, offices, etc.)

So, choose the shop for yourself option when buying your personal machines, and the shop for school when purchasing for a school.

to add more info... #2 is called institutional purchase and prices are even lower than the ind. edu. discounted prices (#1). to purchase under institution, you won't be able to put on personal credit cards. i think you will need some sort of departmental payment method to get those prices.

[gujar]

If you go to the apple store you have to show them your college I.D. They don't ask who's going to use whatever you buy. At the physical stores, you can't buy software with it (with the exception of iLife). When I've bought stuff online I just had to enter my college e-mail address, and they somehow verified that. I've also heard that they occasionally check with your institution to see if you're still registered. But after the fact, as far as I know, there's no effort to make sure the "official" student is the one using the hardware/software.


Last weekend I talked to an Apple representative at CompUSA about buying Student/Teacher version of Mac and she said anyone can buy and no need show any id. They don't monitor in the store. According to her microsoft suppose to monitor it. Seems kind of confusing.

[RBMaraman]

to add more info... #2 is called institutional purchase and prices are even lower than the ind. edu. discounted prices (#1). to purchase under institution, you won't be able to put on personal credit cards. i think you will need some sort of departmental payment method to get those prices.

Thanks for adding that info jxyama!

To clarify your post, you are correct that instituational purchasing does not allow purchases on personal credit cards. Universities and schools must use a purchase order to buy the equipment, and in a lot of cases, a minimum purchase price is set.

[wordmunger]

to add more info... #2 is called institutional purchase and prices are even lower than the ind. edu. discounted prices (#1). to purchase under institution, you won't be able to put on personal credit cards. i think you will need some sort of departmental payment method to get those prices.
Thanks for all the replies! I'm not really worried about how the institutional side is done--it's just that a big professional purchase is planned for next year and I wanted to make sure I wasn't shooting myself in the foot by waiting to buy a powerbook G5 for home use (probably also during next school year, the way the rumors are playing out).

[wPod]

i dont think it is 'by school year' i have purchased an iBook and PB using the educational discount from purdue university. when i bought both it was one year from the date of purchase.

as for the original question, "Can you buy a mac for family member (minor) and still get discount? What documentation you a have to provide?" you can search on apples web site http://store.apple.com/Catalog/US/Images/routingpage.html and search for the k-12 (im assuming that would be the family member that is a minor). i know my little brother (6th grade) found his school on the site that way. if there is an apple store near you, that is probably the best rout to go. just bring in your kid and a school ID. i have never met any emplye at an apple store that was not friendly!

[jxyama]

Thanks for all the replies! I'm not really worried about how the institutional side is done.

i know, but i've checked out (out of curiosity) what the prices are like in the institutional purchases and boy, they are quite a bit lower... made me envious. ;)

[jamdr]

You can only purchase one Mac a year. It's from July 1st to June 30th.

It's interesting how many of these types of threads show up--Apple's educational discount is very confusing! Basically, I think a lot of the confusion comes from the disparity in Apple's actual policy on the educational discount and how it is used in practice. For instance, like you say here, officially Apple says that you can only purchase one PowerBook/iBook or PowerMac/iMac/eMac in a single year. However, I've bought a PowerBook and an eMac only a few months apart, both with the educational discount. I don't think Apple keeps track of how many purchases a customer has made with the discount, just like they don't really verify whether you are actually a student or falculty.

I'm not encouraging people to go out and try to cheat Apple, but I think that you should buy what you need, when you need it, and always try to get the discount. It's up to Apple to enforce their own policy. In the end, I don't think they really care. I may have bought two computers in the same year, but I probably won't use the discount at all for the next two or three years.

[clr900]

I plan on using the discount once the PM rev b updates are announced but I have already used it to buy an ibook at the beginning of the "school year"...I hope this won't be a problem. However, who knows if Apple will even be able to update the PMs before June.