Apple Walks Back UNiDAYS Verification Requirement for U.S. Education Store

[dlopan]

unidays what a joke.

 

[4jasontv]

These aren't university purchases. What money are they spending? If you aren't a current student, teacher or faculty, why should you receive a lifetime discount when Apple specifically states that is not part of the deal? Of course, Apple has been looking the other way for decades in order to make Apple products the choice for students in higher learning and that plan has worked great for them.

they have to buy the stickers. They have to pay someone to verify every student is still enrolled. They have to distribute the stickers. All of that is an expense.

I’m not saying they have to provide a discount to alumni, though they should, but there is no reason to spend extra money just to prevent a student ID from being useful to someone who represents the school.

 

[chevman]

You can also use the corporate discounts without any verification - these are usually as good, or in some cases, better than the edu pricing in my experience.

 

[bradl]

You can also use the corporate discounts without any verification - these are usually as good, or in some cases, better than the edu pricing in my experience.

If you happen to work at a company that has some corporate discounts that allows their employees to use them, and how deep those discounts are. For example, up until last year, I was able to get a corporate discount from working at Intel; however, it was only for what was in stock. No BTO configurations could be made, and even those discounts didn't meet what educational pricing could offer.

Obviously with what is going on now, Intel has subsequently dropped Apple from what they have for a perk. In short for corporate discounts, if applicable, YMMV.

BL.

 

[cmaier]

I understand a student gets a discount, but why education staff also gets one?
Why not, say, a cashier at Walmart, but a teacher?

Because when a teacher or professor is using apple equipment, they act as evangelists to the students, who become lifelong apple customers. Apple doesn’t give these discount solely out of altruism.

 

[4jasontv]

I understand a student gets a discount, but why education staff also gets one?
Why not, say, a cashier at Walmart, but a teacher?

Because becoming a teacher costs more, has a larger impact on society, and yet is paid less per hour than a cashier at Walmart.

I agree the veterans of the world deserve better respect.

I am not sure streamlined handouts equate to better respect, but we should probably include them when we agree to respect everyone better.

 

[minik]

Very good news. I don't have to register with UNiDAYS just to get some sort of EDU discount.

 

[mi7chy]

One has to go through hoops and loops to get a military discount when one could just like he is a student.

Is Apple's implementation of ID.me different? After setting up ID.me once it works universally everywhere and is pretty simple.

 

[jbyte]

The requirement was a major change as Apple had never asked customers to go through a verification process in the United States before...

This is not entirely accurate. They used to require a .edu domain on your email address. They may have stopped doing that b/c a lot of people worked in education (such as non-profits), but did not have a .edu.

 

[bradl]

This is not entirely accurate. They used to require a .edu domain on your email address. They may have stopped doing that b/c a lot of people worked in education (such as non-profits), but did not have a .edu.

I bought my mid-2011 MBA in the month that MBA launched with the student discount, and at an Apple store at that. All they asked me for verification was what university I attended and what the mascot was. No email address required at that time.

BL.

 

[rwagoner]

The discount is basically nothing anyway. They used to discount Apple Care, but no longer. Most times you can get better pricing at other stores, unless you need a special configuration.

 

[bradl]

The discount is basically nothing anyway. They used to discount Apple Care, but no longer. Most times you can get better pricing at other stores, unless you need a special configuration.

Bold for emphasis.

Additionally, that mid-2011 13" MBA I bought with my educational discount was a stock configuration. I walked out of the Apple Store with it, for roughly $600 less than regular price for it. If I had gone with something BTO, I would also have had better pricing than what was available for stock at other stores.

BL.

 

[cmaier]

This is not entirely accurate. They used to require a .edu domain on your email address. They may have stopped doing that b/c a lot of people worked in education (such as non-profits), but did not have a .edu.

I’ve used the education discount without an .edu address since at least 2007.

 

[rwagoner]

Bold for emphasis.

Additionally, that mid-2011 13" MBA I bought with my educational discount was a stock configuration. I walked out of the Apple Store with it, for roughly $600 less than regular price for it. If I had gone with something BTO, I would also have had better pricing than what was available for stock at other stores.

BL.

And now that I think about it, I was thinking more along the lower lines, where the discount is at max about $30-$50. But the discount is far from what it once was.

 

[bradl]

And now that I think about it, I was thinking more along the lower lines, where the discount is at max about $30-$50. But the discount is far from what it once was.

I was seeing roughly $150-200 between the 16" M1 Pro 10/16/16 at 2TB at retail versus the educational discount. That difference could go to the cost of AppleCare, effectively dropping the price of AppleCare, so win/win on that. Obviously, that difference increases the higher you go with that BTO configuration. As soon as I get the chance, I'm definitely pulling the trigger on that, but time is limited, as we don't know when Apple will put UniDAYS or any other verification system back into play.

For the record, we're homeschooling our children via our children's charter school in their school district.

BL.

 

[UnusedLoginID]

This is not entirely accurate. They used to require a .edu domain on your email address. They may have stopped doing that b/c a lot of people worked in education (such as non-profits), but did not have a .edu.

Wrong! Apple never required an .edu email. Many colleges (like community colleges), schools, etc… don’t provide .edu email addresses.
I wondered how Unidays would handle orders from high school students with a college acceptance letter, parents of college students, or faculty/staff and PTA/PTE officers of schools. None of these people have a .edu email address.
Anyway the education pricing program has been as mess since the beginning because of the very inconsistent way it is handled in stores, and the fact that literally everyone can order with edu discounts online.

 

[UnusedLoginID]

For the record, we're homeschooling our children via our children's charter school in their school district.

… and you do know that primary, middle and high schools students are NOT eligible for education pricing! Yes, I thought so…
Back to my earlier comment that the program is a total mess and has always been because eligibility is complex, different stores and even different employees at the same store apply the promo inconsistently - some would give the discount to anyone from any country when eligibility is specific to students in a US college - and that makes for unhappy parents and students.
Anyway, Unidays or not, that won’t help solve the inconsistency in stores unless they make it a requirement to order online.

 

[laptech]

Really Apple??? They've had the same system in place in the UK for a very long time and they are not able to copy the system and adapt it for the US without incurring problems.!!! Sack the people who was hired to write the software for the US because all they had to do was change a few lines of code from the one that was made for the UK so it would work for the US but they couldn't even do that.

 

[paulijennifer]

This is not entirely accurate. They used to require a .edu domain on your email address. They may have stopped doing that b/c a lot of people worked in education (such as non-profits), but did not have a .edu.

It's true, at my university they only create mail with the .edu domain for teachers. They said that they don't create such emails for students. That's sad.

 

[bradl]

… and you do know that primary, middle and high schools students are NOT eligible for education pricing! Yes, I thought so…
Back to my earlier comment that the program is a total mess and has always been because eligibility is complex, different stores and even different employees at the same store apply the promo inconsistently - some would give the discount to anyone from any country when eligibility is specific to students in a US college - and that makes for unhappy parents and students.
Anyway, Unidays or not, that won’t help solve the inconsistency in stores unless they make it a requirement to order online.

.. and you do know that homeschooling teachers are eligible for educational pricing!

Available to current and newly accepted college students and their parents, as well as faculty, staff, and homeschool teachers of all grade levels.*

Yes, I thought so! ??‍♂️

BL.

 

[deeddawg]

… and you do know that primary, middle and high schools students are NOT eligible for education pricing! Yes, I thought so…
Back to my earlier comment that the program is a total mess and has always been because eligibility is complex, different stores and even different employees at the same store apply the promo inconsistently - some would give the discount to anyone from any country when eligibility is specific to students in a US college - and that makes for unhappy parents and students.
Anyway, Unidays or not, that won’t help solve the inconsistency in stores unless they make it a requirement to order online.

Eligibility is not specific to students in a US college.

K-12 faculty, staff, and homeschooling parents are included.

 

[VulchR]

Really Apple??? They've had the same system in place in the UK for a very long time and they are not able to copy the system and adapt it for the US without incurring problems.!!! Sack the people who was hired to write the software for the US because all they had to do was change a few lines of code from the one that was made for the UK so it would work for the US but they couldn't even do that.

The UK is educational system is far, far less complex than the US system. But, yes, you'd think these kind of things would be extensively tested and debugged before going live.

 

[robd003]

UNiDAYS is such a horrible service. I hope Apple goes back to just trusting people instead of frustrating them.

Make the customer happy and you'll make more money. Making people spend an hour working with a ****** 3rd party is going to make them look at Windows / Linux computers.

 

[laptech]

The UK is educational system is far, far less complex than the US system. But, yes, you'd think these kind of things would be extensively tested and debugged before going live.

How so more complex? because to me the rudementals are the same. The UK has or did have nursery, primary then secondary school, college (various types but still come under the same banner of 'college') then University. You then have pupil/student (take your pick) and staff. Obviously prices will be in pounds sterling and have sales tax add accordingly.

So, from how I see it, to adapt it to the US version, just change the types of school to that of the US system, change the currency to dollars and change the sales tax acordingly. I don't know anything about the US education system so please could someone enlighten me as to how given the above, the US system is more complex than the UK system. What have I missed out?

 

[deeddawg]

How so more complex? because to me the rudementals are the same. The UK has or did have nursery, primary then secondary school, college (various types but still come under the same banner of 'college') then University. You then have pupil/student (take your pick) and staff. Obviously prices will be in pounds sterling and have sales tax add accordingly.

So, from how I see it, to adapt it to the US version, just change the types of school to that of the US system, change the currency to dollars and change the sales tax acordingly. I don't know anything about the US education system so please could someone enlighten me as to how given the above, the US system is more complex than the UK system. What have I missed out?

I'm not particularly familiar with the UK system, and your assessment of the US system is accurate enough - though college & university is functionally equivalent here.

The issue with the Unidays deployment is that to sign up one needed an email address ending in .edu and one needed to select one's university from a list.

This excluded a substantial block of previously eligible people; not every college/university was listed, not every college/university provides .edu email addresses, primary/secondary schools don't usually have .edu addresses even for their faculty/staff, and homeschooling parents also could not access Unidays.