Brown University Offers Office 365 To Students At No Additional Cost

The cost of which will be added to their tuition. Ain't student loans great? Give Uni's and Colleges a constant revenue stream and all it costs is their students financial future. I wonder how many of those graduates can afford to be alumni that donate money to the school after paying for the student loans?

Well, IIRC, the state college I went to allowed you to 'buy' office for $5. I imagine that was only to cover the media costs. Online/digial office for freesies is about the same thing, it's not that surprising.

I wouldn't be happy if I were a student there. Our university gets Google docs for free, which does most everything I need at school. Tuition and fees are ridiculous enough already.

And the nice part (for Microsoft) is that you don't have a copy of office to use after you graduate. Instead you will need to spend even more money for an Office 365 subscription, or to buy a full copy of office.

I'd rather have a full version of Office for $5 like most major universities offer, than this. Ivy League too, with a huge endowment, being this cheap. For shame.

doho7744 said:

The cost of which will be added to their tuition.

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Actually there is no additional cost. The only requirement is that the school is licensing their full-time faculty and staff for Office. Since most schools were paying for that already, this program is effectively free. Brown is by no means special; hundreds of schools are doing this for their students now or in the near future.

From the Brown Universtity Website:

Tuition & Fees. Undergraduate tuition for academic year 2013-14: $44,608

Free. Ha, that's a good one.

TwistedAegis said:

From the Brown Universtity Website:

Tuition & Fees. Undergraduate tuition for academic year 2013-14: $44,608

Free. Ha, that's a good one.

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Don't be a retard.

Microsoft provides the program at no additional cost.

All schools and universities that license Office 365 ProPlus or Office Professional Plus for staff and faculty can now also provide access to Office 365 ProPlus for students at no additional cost.

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Source: http://blogs.office.com/2013/12/02/...workplace-student-advantage-is-now-available/

Arguments against the ludicrous cost of a college education aside, I'm hoping that if you manage to get accepted at Brown, then graduate, that you will not be in a position where you will find yourself unable to repay your student loans.

Sen Warren of MA says the problem is the interest rates and not the high tuition itself.

This fake Indian bitch gets paid 400k to teach one fuckin course.

Overblown salaries of professors and administrators are so out of hand yet some don't see this as the problem.

There is nothing for free, they will suck you dry and line their pockets.

Budzman said:

Sen Warren of MA says the problem is the interest rates and not the high tuition itself.

This fake Indian bitch gets paid 400k to teach one fuckin course.

Overblown salaries of professors and administrators are so out of hand yet some don't see this as the problem.

There is nothing for free, they will suck you dry and line their pockets.

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Careful there, that "fake Indian bitch" getting paid 400k to teach one course is all on the administrators for giving the OK and allowing that shit to happen, which sadly happens way to often at "prestigious" schools. Most of the professors aren't getting anywhere close to that, if they're full time tenure they're maybe making 1/5th of that.... if they have some experience under their belt and/or also bringing in grant money for research they're doing.

Thuleman said:

Don't be a retard.

Microsoft provides the program at no additional cost.

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Right, Microsoft does. Not Brown.

As for overpaid professors, I don't think that's the issue. It's the explosion in administration staff at colleges.

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/ma...inistrators_ate_my_tuition031641.php?page=all

Between 1975 and 2005, total spending by American higher educational institutions, stated in constant dollars, tripled, to more than $325 billion per year. Over the same period, the faculty-to-student ratio has remained fairly constant, at approximately fifteen or sixteen students per instructor. One thing that has changed, dramatically, is the administrator-per-student ratio. In 1975, colleges employed one administrator for every eighty-four students and one professional staffer—admissions officers, information technology specialists, and the like—for every fifty students. By 2005, the administrator-to-student ratio had dropped to one administrator for every sixty-eight students while the ratio of professional staffers had dropped to one for every twenty-one students.

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I received a retail copy of Office XP Professional "at no additional cost" when I went to college with a unique license. In other words I was able to take it with me and continue to use it after I graduated. Same thing with Visual Studio 2003 and Visual Studio 2005. Do these students getting "access" to Office 365 get to continue using it after they graduate?

^^^ That's one of the things that our school got busted for from the accreditation committee, we don't have enough administrators. So it goes a bit farther than schools just doing this because they want cushy administrative jobs, this is "impartial" *guffaw* entities backed by the federal government saying more admins are necessary.

Armenius said:

I received a retail copy of Office XP Professional "at no additional cost" when I went to college with a unique license. In other words I was able to take it with me and continue to use it after I graduated. Same thing with Visual Studio 2003 and Visual Studio 2005. Do these students getting "access" to Office 365 get to continue using it after they graduate?

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I doubt they will still have access to it after they graduate.

MS- Get them addicted to a specific piece of software, and then watch these "freebies" pay for themselves over and over again once the students graduate.

As for free software from MS, if you have a .edu email address, there is a good chance you can still get a lot of "free" MS software from Dreamspark such as Visual Studio and Server as well as a few other nice packages.

eldertru said:

I wouldn't be happy if I were a student there. Our university gets Google docs for free, which does most everything I need at school. Tuition and fees are ridiculous enough already.

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I don't suspect this will drive a material increase in tuition. And honestly, if you're a finance/econ/business major, Google docs isn't even close to being a viable substitute for excel. So I laud Brown for this move.

jflail2 said:

I don't suspect this will drive a material increase in tuition. And honestly, if you're a finance/econ/business major, Google docs isn't even close to being a viable substitute for excel. So I laud Brown for this move.

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While I would prefer to buy an actual copy of Office, I really cannot stand people who go around thinking Google docs or OpenOffice is like the total solution for their anti-Microsoft tendencies. What you state is correct as much of that has absolutely no real use in much of the real world. Office is just that good of a suite for a professional.

amdgamer said:

While I would prefer to buy an actual copy of Office, I really cannot stand people who go around thinking Google docs or OpenOffice is like the total solution for their anti-Microsoft tendencies. What you state is correct as much of that has absolutely no real use in much of the real world. Office is just that good of a suite for a professional.

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Some also seem to forget that Office 365 is multi-client and multi-platform. You get a desktop Windows and Mac client along with the current iPad version and probably access to the modern Windows and Android tablet versions.

Eastern Washington University also gets this deal for all students. I do believe you get the university edition of the office 365 which includes 2 installs.

heatlesssun said:

Some also seem to forget that Office 365 is multi-client and multi-platform. You get a desktop Windows and Mac client along with the current iPad version and probably access to the modern Windows and Android tablet versions.

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I think what most people fail to realise(or ignore it) is the regular install is single platform/per license. 365 is all platforms/per license, plus access to the cloud which is helpful to students.

Steve said:

Brown University has selected Microsoft Office 365 for its students, and is using the Microsoft Student Advantage benefit to extend the service to its student body at no additional cost using their existing Brown credentials. Available since Jan. 1, Microsoft Office 365 ProPlus gives Brown’s approximate 8,600 students the tools they need to complete coursework from any device while in school and compete in the job market after graduation.

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Actually, I'm pretty sure Microsoft selected Brown University for its free Office 365 PR stunt.

Armenius said:

I received a retail copy of Office XP Professional "at no additional cost" when I went to college with a unique license. In other words I was able to take it with me and continue to use it after I graduated. Same thing with Visual Studio 2003 and Visual Studio 2005. Do these students getting "access" to Office 365 get to continue using it after they graduate?

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The Home Use Program did not give you a retail copy of Office, at least not from the licensing perspective:

Are these products limited license(s)/version(s)?

The functionality of the products available via HUP matches those of retail versions, and provide all the benefits you would receive if you bought it at the store. However, your right to use this software is tied to your company's continued Software Assurance coverage and your continued employment with that company. Your employer will notify you if their Software Assurance coverage expires.
- See more at: http://www.microsofthup.com/hupus/faq.aspx#sthash.zX6CQGyj.dpuf

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DPI said:

Actually, I'm pretty sure Microsoft selected Brown University for its free Office 365 PR stunt.

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Yeah, didn't read the article.

ND40oz said:

The Home Use Program did not give you a retail copy of Office, at least not from the licensing perspective:

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That is nice and all, but the licenses for the products I received were not from the HUP or from DreamSpark.

amdgamer said:

While I would prefer to buy an actual copy of Office, I really cannot stand people who go around thinking Google docs or OpenOffice is like the total solution for their anti-Microsoft tendencies. What you state is correct as much of that has absolutely no real use in much of the real world. Office is just that good of a suite for a professional.

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You're exactly right. Want a place to jot down recipes and then share them with family/friends? Google docs is great for that. Want a simplistic personal budget tracker? You can do that in Google docs. Beyond that, I don't have much use for it. I need all the horse power MS excel provides for my job, and Google docs could never bridge that gap to be honest.

Armenius said:

That is nice and all, but the licenses for the products I received were not from the HUP or from DreamSpark.

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They were probably MAK you received in violation of the campus licensing agreement. Back when keys were still handed out it happened all the time that IT issued keys to students even though students were not eligible to receive them.

Today the campus licenses all run through a KMS and those mistakes are much more rare and much easier to correct as you need to reconnect to the campus network on a regular basis to renew your license.

Brown is by far not unique...


HUP = Office 2013 or Office 2011 for Mac for $9.95 for employees (many large companies have this as well), can be used for use by family members and for other personal activities but not for other businesses
or
Work-at-home ...can only be used by the employee for work-related purposes, slightly cheaper at $8 but has a lot of admin overhead....ie someone leaves, please uninstall and give back your media on your last day


Student Advantage went live in December but requires schools to not only be licensing ProPlus for all employees but also have a presence within Office 365 which many many schools did not have prior to this, many are and a fair number of schools will have the offering by Fall of 14' for students.

DreamSpark has a few programs Visual Studio and many server applications for all students at $200/year for the institution

DreamSpark Premium extends to Windows desktop OS's and a few others but students must be validated for STEM programs at $500/year

Dreamspark does offer multi-year discounts and renewal discounts

Many schools also have partnerships with other firms for other sometimes heavily discounted software (ie VMware, Adobe, ect) for students and sometimes for employees.

Some schools still offer MSDN to students and even IT staff because it's cheaper due to the licensing variations between different EA agreements from school to school.

For better or worse depending upon how you look at it Microsoft likes giving the stuff away everything in a highly discounted way for education to get students hooked. If I learn Windows + MS Office or Office 365 in school what do you think I will want to use after?