i feel like the edu website probably got a lot of abuse. people picking their old schools and getting cheap software. heck, i'm not going to lie, i'd do it. but now there really isn't that much of an incentive.
i remember when they changed the edu pricing for Leopard and Logic, which is similar to what we see here. someone said that they still offered the cheap pricing at campus stores. if that's true, i think this might be the better way to go. online, with no real way to verify if you actually qualify, offer a slightly reduced price, but in campus stores or maybe even apple stores where you can check school IDs and stuff, maintain the kind of pricing that students can actually afford. it would be easy for people who actually are students to find the reduced price, but slightly more difficult for others (enrolling in a class, acquiring a valid school ID, etc., to much hassle if you're just trying to get the student price).
on a side note, the reduced pricing for the regular version really isn't that impressive considering soundtrack is gone. logic's price reduction was huge, considering what you got. this, not so much. the possibility of using GarageBand as a replacement might not be such a bad idea, provided there is some noise reduction capabilities somewhere in there, in either FCX or GB.
, you will not only get discounts, but goodies once in a while.. after be like.. i need more then just a mac in my life.. and walk out.. 
