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  • Apple has backtracked

One of the many perks of being a university student is the fact that lots of businesses are willing to give you discounts on their products and services. Whether you’re looking for a PC, movie tickets, or Photoshop, being a student will help you get it cheaper. All of that is also true for buying Apple products online, and until recently, its educational discount was open to anyone in the US. But now, Apple is closing that loophole and requiring shoppers to verify their education credentials before letting them browse or purchase products.

The change — which requires users to prove educational status via UNiDAYS and limits customers to purchasing one device per category per year — first appears to have been spotted on Reddit by user u/siddharthsure (via XDA). UNiDAYS is a website that offers hundreds of discounts to students and educators so long as they’re a member. To get membership in the US, you only have to have an email address that ends in .edu and verify your email annually.

Worldwide, Apple’s approach to its educational pricing is piecemeal. Students and teachers in Germany, the UK, and India have already had a verification system in place, but if you live in Canada or Mexico they’re still using the honor system. Fortunately, most of these deals can be matched or beaten during back-to-school sales, if you can wait that long.

From now on, if you live in the US, educational discount won't be quite so easy to get in on and use, so if you're looking to buy a fancy (and accordingly expensive) new MacBook Pro, you better start saving right away.

UPDATE: 2022/01/24 13:44 EST BY AROL WRIGHT

Apple has backtracked

As reported by multiple news outlets like The Verge, Apple has stopped requiring UNiDAYS verification in the US for users to take advantage of student discounts for its products. That means that, as of the time of writing, it's open to anyone in the US. The verification process is still live in markets like the UK, though, so we don't know if Apple has removed it permanently because of user backlash or if it will come back at some point. There's a very real chance it's the latter.

Nonetheless, if you were looking at getting yourself an Apple product, and you don't have an .EDU email, now's the time. But maybe do it now, just in case it comes back later.