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People buy Apple products from Apple? Between Best Buy, Costco, and MicroCenter I would be throwing money away to buy at Apple.com or in store. Better prices elsewhere.

Please post the link to a MacbookAir with 16GB RAM at BestBuy or Microcenter or Costco. Oh, also need 1TB storage.

I can't seem to find that model available.
 
Apple dont sell direct to education institutions, in the UK at least, and its been that way for several years. In UK HE you have to go through a re-seller such as Academia.

They do in the US. (or they did a year ago)

I've been able to order BTO configurations directly through my university campus store as an alumnus.

Apple shipped to the campus store, they then shipped to me.
 
How does the verification work? I graduated this summer but have been helping one of my profs with a research web application - which requires all my Student related accounts/access. Is having a university email enough or do they ask for like enrollment / timetables information ?
Now that I've started working and am due for a few raises over next few months I hopefully won't really need the (paltry, in some cases) discounts - but will use it as long as I can.
(I'm currently living in Canada so this may not affect me right away but if its coming to US its gonna be comin to Canada soon)
 
Pro tip: .edu email accounts from random community colleges are easy to buy for a few bucks each if you know where to look (don't want to burn my source by posting here). They work with Unidays and therefore get you the Apple education discount.
 
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Pro tip: .edu email accounts from random community colleges are easy to buy for a few bucks each if you know where to look (don't want to burn my source by posting here). They work with Unidays and therefore get you the Apple education discount.

Out of curiosity I tried registering with my .edu address from grad school, and it reported back, correctly, I am not a student. I had to logon to my school account as part of the signup. No big deal as my wife is a teacher and I am a veteran so we get to chose which account to use.
 
Please post the link to a MacbookAir with 16GB RAM at BestBuy or Microcenter or Costco. Oh, also need 1TB storage.

I can't seem to find that model available.
BH Photo and Video: $1549 for a special order 8 Core 16gb/1TB Air and you can get the sales tax back via payboo
They also have an educational store that requires signup via, you guessed it, UniDays
 
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I'm not surprised. They should have done this from the beginning. That being said I forgot a couple times to use my educational discount even though I was going to school and registered through Unidays.
 


Apple is now requiring that customers in the United States verify that they're active students, teachers, or staff members at an educational institution in order to access education discounts on products.

appleeducation.jpg

Previously, little verification was needed for customers to purchase products through Apple's education store in the United States. Apple's education stores offer models of the iPad and Mac at reduced price points, making them more affordable to students, teachers, and staff who will use them for education purposes.

As the store was accessible to all, some customers may have used it even if they weren't an education customer, which likely led Apple to implement tighter rules for its U.S. store.

As spotted on Reddit, Apple in the United States now requires that current students, teachers, and staff members verify their eligibility for education discounts through UNiDAYS. UNiDAYS is a website specialized in providing education customers with discounts for products and services by confirming their enrollment in an educational institution.

Apple had previously implemented the same approach to its education store in other countries, such as India and the United Kingdom. At the time of writing, Apple's Canadian education store remains open, with customers able to purchase discounted products without the need to verify eligibility through UNiDAYS.

Article Link: Apple's US Education Store Now Requires Institution Verification to Buy Discounted Products
I am an educator and I don't mind the verification by apple, but did you read the fine print?
"To verify your student or staff status, you will be redirected to the third-party website UNiDAYS and will be subject to their privacy policy(Opens in a new window). By registering and using their website, the data you provide will be owned, controlled and processed solely by UNiDAYS and not by Apple."
With all the billions of dollars and resources at their disposal, apple couldn't do this by itself?
Big on privacy! What a joke.
 
BH Photo and Video: $1549 for a special order 8 Core 16gb/1TB Air and you can get the sales tax back via payboo
They also have an educational store that requires signup via, you guessed it, UniDays

Thanks, I'd forgotten that B&H does BTO systems.

Though that price is only for the Gold models. Silver or Space Gray are $100 more at $1649, same as if you order directly from Apple at retail prices. Payboo impact varies by your sales tax rate - 6% for me, so that'd be a $50 difference vs buying from Apple with AppleCard 3% cash back.

B&H BTO systems are completely non-returnable though, so the savings may not be worthwhile.

Same 8-core gpu 16/1T MBA in space gray is $1509 via Apple EDU store. Same price if I were to order from my university bookstore as an alumnus. Also AC+ for MBA is about $20 cheaper via EDU channels, saving even more.

So, my comment in response to kjvmartin stands - yes, people buy from Apple - when they need a BTO system. Particularly if they're able to do so with an EDU discount. The big box retail store discounts on the retail configs can be good if that's the config you need, but when it isn't then they're not an option.
 
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K-12 is not eligible on the student level. University students, then then adults who are teachers or staff, regardless of level of institution. But not my high school sophomore daughter.



What challenge did I propose?
That’s terrible. Luckily my daughters are both teachers and been using that since 2013. They don’t wish to give the 10% on Macs. I never noticed any other discounts though I never really searched.
 
This is a nothing burger. Apple's education prices are so often beaten by other retailers and I'm sure Apple knows that and hence didn't care for a long time that people were cheating the system so to speak. Maybe too many people started combining education prices with discounted Apple gift cards to get a real deal and that started to annoy them (though I doubt it). Hopefully this is a sign that education prices are going to get better discounts not just 5-10%...

Maybe during the summer when you get free AirPods the education discount is competitive with say a sale at Best Buy but even then it's often not.

You would be right.. if the customer was only looking for stock configurations.

Some of us, however are looking for more; hence, BTO. Those other retailers can't handle those BTO/CTO configurations, so the only place to get those would be to order directly from Apple. That is what you're missing here.

Pretty sure the program is designed for college students who have .edu emails rather than High School and below which don’t which is also how you’re verified. Why should a kid regardless of home school or not get a discount on products they most likely can’t even afford? I’ve never heard of a public school requiring students to have iPads or MacBooks. Private school or College yes, but not public/home school.

Should an elementary school kid at a public school get a discount as well? Makes no sense.

You're assuming that a kid in high school can't save their own money, even with them getting a valid school account (some of those in various school districts are NOT .edu addresses, which is the problem with UniDAYS assumption and definition of what a student is), and being able to buy it themselves. If you have kids 13 and older learning how to code, having classes for that in their school, and wanting to do work on their own, they are perfectly well in their right to save their money and purchase a Mac or so on their own with a student discount for the work they are doing as a student.

You aren't giving the student any credit into what they can or can not do (read: prejudice) because you are basing their income on their age or lifestyle pertaining to their age. You, nor anyone else gets to make that call.

For the record, my mother has been a high school principal for the past 20 years, and has been in the public school system in her town since the early 1970s. Since her email address from her school district is .org, it actually fails UniDAYS' qualifications for what a teacher/staff would be, despite who Apple states should qualify.

BL.
 
You would be right.. if the customer was only looking for stock configurations.

Some of us, however are looking for more; hence, BTO. Those other retailers can't handle those BTO/CTO configurations, so the only place to get those would be to order directly from Apple. That is what you're missing here.

Some retailers sell BTO configurations; but often without the same discount.

If you have kids 13 and older learning how to code, having classes for that in their school, and wanting to do work on their own, they are perfectly well in their right to save their money and purchase a Mac or so on their own with a student discount for the work they are doing as a student.

No one has a right to a discount; that is the seller's call. Apple chose not to offer for K-12 students. I suspect it is because a significant percentage of their customer base could qualify simply because they have children, thus having a significant revenue impact.

The annual back to school special offers will be interesting because now they will be much harder to get.

For the record, my mother has been a high school principal for the past 20 years, and has been in the public school system in her town since the early 1970s. Since her email address from her school district is .org, it actually fails UniDAYS' qualifications for what a teacher/staff would be, despite who Apple states should qualify.

That's the same for our district. Not sure why, as there appears to be no .edu registered with the same name.
 
I received this reply from UNiDAYS. I work for an educational institution (K-12) and we've always been eligible by Apple for educational discounts. No more.

"Hi <redacted> Thanks for contacting UNiDAYS. We are unable to continue with the verification of your account as we do not currently support your institution. Please check back with us if your situation changes. Thanks, Imogen UNiDAYS Support"

I contacted MacRumors about this but haven't heard back. I guess it's not newsworthy that a lot of people have lost their education discounts due to this "verification" change.

Edit: UNiDAYS is no longer in charge of verifying educational employees! Thanks MacRumors for posting the article on this!
 
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I can attest that was never the case online. Apple Store employees would ask for proof of eligibility… I should say “some” employees but often times when they could not offer the discount, they would send the customer to the website to order and pickup 30mn later. Never understood the online “honor system” but at last Apple made it right.
Now, it’s going to be a nightmare for the parents of eligible students, and these PTA officers, the high school seniors who only have a letter of acceptance at college (eligible too), the staff and students at schools that do not have an .edu email system (public and private schools), etc… I don’t know who Unidays is, but I hope they have many support staff to field these issues. I sense frustration mounting… like Apple needs more frustrated customers !!!
You used to have to select a school to access the online store, but nothing beyond that. In-store they definitely checked school ID or paystub, or whatever.
 
You used to have to select a school to access the online store, but nothing beyond that. In-store they definitely checked school ID or paystub, or whatever.

That.... is interesting. Hmm....

BL.
 
Apparently anyone with an email that ends in .edu was once considered for the discount. These discounts should be made only available from the school's student store where verification is more up-to-date.
 
Apparently anyone with an email that ends in .edu was once considered for the discount. These discounts should be made only available from the school's student store where verification is more up-to-date.

In the US, Apple offers the discount to K-12 staff and faculty, as well as homeschool parents.

How would you propose they should obtain .edu addresses? Many (most?) K-12 school districts don’t have .edu domains.

Also, as for ordering via campus store as a gatekeeper…. both my undergrad and grad school campus stores allow alumni to order Apple products with EDU discount. Even online/shipped without setting for inside the store.
 
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