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Microsoft IT

Microsoft 365 Personal is Now Free For US College Students For a Year (theverge.com) 55

Posted by msmash from the free-stuff dept.
Microsoft is giving away Microsoft 365 Personal subscriptions to all US college students. From a report: This subscription gives students free access to Microsoft's Office apps and the Copilot AI assistant integration for a year, after which the students are eligible for a 50 percent discount to continue the subscription.

While most students have access to education versions of Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace, Microsoft's offer is for student's own personal Microsoft accounts, and is available to claim until October 31st. Microsoft 365 Personal is usually $99.99 a year, or $9.99 a month, and includes 1TB of OneDrive cloud storage.

Microsoft 365 Personal is Now Free For US College Students For a Year More | Reply

Microsoft 365 Personal is Now Free For US College Students For a Year

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  • Sure... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by kwelch007 ( 197081 ) on Friday September 05, 2025 @04:07PM (#65641780) Homepage

    And all your files are stored on OneDrive by default. Sub runs out and now you have to figure out how to move all your files, or start paying $50/year or whatever.

    • Let's be real these kids are going to paying someone for storage so Microsoft is trying to get them locked in with them instead of Google or Apple.

    • And all your files are stored on OneDrive by default.

      Probably can change that.

      Bet the Copilot AI training can't be turned off though.

    • Happened to my kid at high school: school use OneNote. It was very hard to figure out how to get 3 years of notes out as files. Now her sister wants the notes, and I have a hard time figuring out how to import the notes to her account. It doesn't help that they both use Mac.

      • To convert a OneNote page or section to a PDF, use the "Export as PDF" or "Print to PDF" option directly from the OneNote desktop app or OneNote for the web by going to the File menu, then selecting the desired export/print option. For the desktop application, choose File > Print, select "Microsoft Print to PDF" from the printer list, and then click Print to save the file. If using the web version, you may find an "Export as PDF" option directly in the File menu.

        I think there is also a Save to Word, but

    • Admiral Ackbar says: "It's a trap!"

    • "Hey, the first one's free, kid."
      "Just say 'No'!"

  • Isn't is sweet how Microsoft wants to give them a big hug, and extend that support until all doubt is extinguished.

  • Of course (Score:5, Informative)

    by bjoast ( 1310293 ) on Friday September 05, 2025 @04:12PM (#65641792)
    Get them hooked at a young age.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Quaoar ( 614366 )
      Or disgusted at a young age.

      • Re:Of course (Score:5, Informative)

        by Rosco P. Coltrane ( 209368 ) on Friday September 05, 2025 @05:43PM (#65641960)

        It doesn't matter if they're disgusted.

        It's not like Apple, which also did that back in the days to get students hooked to Apple computers, because Apple computers were better.

        Microsoft has a virtual monopoly on the professional marketplace: the point is to get the kids used to using Microsoft cloud shit before they start their career so there's no friction - and therefore no pushback - when they get their first job. The point is to make sure Microsoft is kind of the natural thing in the background to people who are focused on trying to do well at their first job.

        Psychologically, this goes a long way towards ensuring Microsoft quietly maintains their monopoly and nobody questions if there's something better that might make sense at work.

        • There are cracks in the apartment virtual no monopoly of Microsoft.

          Large, old organisations are all in on Microsoft. Younger ones, even multi billion dollar public companies are much less so. My last two jobs were all in on g suite. One tiny startup, one large company.

          IMO, gsuite is shit, but also MS have been determinedly enshittifying office.

    • Happens here in Denmark as well: Free licenses in high school and university. And IT departments settling everything up for Office365 for the students. No wonder they will expect nothing else when they get a job. Until 9. grade they used Google stuff in our town, but that isn't better, but at least you could use it on any platform.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by mz721 ( 9598430 )

      Well, at least they might get hooked on a reasonably capable product. I've worked as a professional editor, and it's clear that Google docs is lacking a lot of important functionality, so while I am no MS fan, but at least they'll get a more capable tool from the tech oligarchy.

      In Australia google is completely embedded in the education system, which I think is irresponsible of the various education departments, but that's a separate topic. I can see why MS would want to combat that.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by muvol ( 1226860 )
      Kid. Hey, kid. The first one's free.

  • In the process of proving it you let them know where you go to school.

  • It is pressure from their near-peer competitor, LibreOffice, forcing them into this desperate move.

    . . . what? No? Well, in an alternate universe, it might be true!

    • I have no doubt that LibreOffice keeps MS awake at night, but is it their only competitor?

      When I saw TFS, I immediately thought of Google Docs/Sheets/Slides as an alternative with online storage. Not sure LibreOffice has that.

      • I just checked, and LibraOffice does have the option to save to a remote server. I've never needed to use it, and being retired I doubt that I ever will, but I can tell you that the option is on the File Menu.

        • Nice to know. Also, I suppose one could locally mount a remote drive and use it for/with anything you want.

          • Yes. Linux has worked with Samba for at least twenty years. I'm not sure if you need it just to store one file remotely, but I'd expect that you'd need it for mounting a remote drive, especially if the remote server isn't running Linux.

            • I wasn't thinking of Samba. It can't mount a Google Drive, or anything that doesn't speak SMB/CIFS. And it has been around for more than 20 years: it was created by Andrew Tridgell in 1991/1992.

  • I feel bad for kids in school right now. They are learning to rely on a half-assed tool instead of using their own brain. I wonder if they know when AI output is trash.

    I didn't get to use a calculator in school until I had the basics down by hand. We need this same approach with AI, learn the basics yourself before you learn to push the easy button.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      I cannot speak for "kids" in general, but my 20-25 year old IT security students are very careful to only use LLMs when they are stuck or as a final verification step. This is in Europe.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by _merlin ( 160982 )

        Kids here just try to trick AI into saying racist things. They use it as a form of entertainment.

    • Don't know how old you are but when I was in college.. erm, lets say 10-20 years ago they were pretty insistent on having *Real* Microsoft Word and not using alternatives because the professors don't want to deal with formatting issues. And papers had to be submitted in .docx

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by bn-7bc ( 909819 )
        Oh i thought papers was supposed to be in latex, at keast for theses/final ptojects for pacholes/masters/ phds, but you mighy have been reffering to assignments in the individual subjects
    • I graduated in 1966 and remember typing out my term papers. There couldn't be any mistakes in our papers and we couldn't use white out to correct them. If there was an error we would have to type out the entire paper again. Around 1995, I purchased a refurbished IBM PS2 80 with PCDOS 7 and then purchased Word Perfect 6.0 for Dos. I thought it was the most wonderful tool I'd ever gotten because now I didn't have to keep on retyping my papers over and over again because of my errors. Even if I complain ab

  • Yeah... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by johnnys ( 592333 ) on Friday September 05, 2025 @04:24PM (#65641828)

    "The first taste is free!"

    Reminds me of another "business" known for exploiting its "users"...

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

    • At least they are honest about it being free for a limited time. The standard process for enshittification is to make it seem like it will be free forever, and then one day the terms of service change.
      • That's usually a side effect of some company spending a wad of venture capital without having a business plan figured out yet. Microsoft already has the product and the business plan, but they must be in need of customers. I share the OP's dim view of what Microsoft is doing, but the grocery store has free sample days too. Sometimes it's necessary to give potential customers a taste of what they're missing.
        • Startup execs are not so clueless. In public they might act like idealist, eager builders who just haven't gotten around to thinking about the money thing yet - that works on a surprising number of people still. But that pose doesn't work with VCs. For startups in these markets now the rug-pull is going to be Plan B (where Plan A is being acquired).

  • The first dose is free (Score:4, Insightful)

    by gweihir ( 88907 ) on Friday September 05, 2025 @04:36PM (#65641840)

    And then you have one hell of a problem...

  • That is a terrible offer (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Murdoch5 ( 1563847 ) on Friday September 05, 2025 @05:30PM (#65641934) Homepage
    The only reason Microsoft is making this offer, is so they can abuse access to OneDrive, which is now turned on by default, to vacuum up data for AI processing.

    What other reason would Microsoft have for doing this? Office 365 is a subjectively valueless program, it falls well short of other offerings in the office space, such as LibreOffice. It's buggy, glitchy, crashes, locks up, and makes a song and dance out of doing anything reasonably simple, pair it with OneDrive, and you've really unleashed a new level of incompetent data complexity. I can visit LibreOffice and grab a fully featured, secure, stable, supported and open office platform, for free, with none of the BS of Office 365, that I know will work, without having to worry on daily, hourly, or to the minute if my files or programs will be corrupted.

    • >"The only reason Microsoft is making this offer, is so they can abuse access to OneDrive, which is now turned on by default, to vacuum up data for AI processing."

      As you sorta pointed out, it is NOT the ONLY reason. They also don't want those users looking around for something and discovering LibreOffice (or other free competitors). Because if the users did, perhaps 95% of them would be satisfied and never consider paying for MS-Office. And, worse, they would have experience and mid-share on something

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by allo ( 1728082 )

      The reason to give a time limited license to students is to have them use your fileformats, get used to your programs and store stuff in your cloud, that gets them to later in life keep using your product and pay for it. No need for more conspiracy theories, Microsoft had such academic rebate programs since decades. Need Windows? Need Visual Studio? Need Microsoft XY? Good chance your university has a free license for you. Educational use only, of course.

      • 100% it's about locking in, which is one of the reasons they do it. They can't afford to have people discover better alternatives, so they force a locked ecosystem. Now, if they were Apple, and it was smooth, and worked, great, but with Microsoft, it's a junkyard built car, that hardly turns over, and breaks down every km.

        Imagine the change if Windows didn't come pre-installed onto virtually every computer meant for desktop style work. If you got to pick Windows, Linux, or Unix, how many people would
  • Never understood cloud storage in this manner. If I need a cloud back-up, I'll email it to myself. If I want portable large data, I'll store it on my phone. If it's a truly massive file: USB stick.Why would I give it to M$ or Google to hoard/mine/train from??

  • LibreOffice is free forever and you don't have to give Microsoft copies of all your data.

  • Boomers and MS are on their way out. College kids these days prefer Apple. Cutting-edge gamers see what Steam is accomplishing with Linux and Proton/WINE. Mac and Linux both come with free software that does everything MS Office does. MS is doing all it can to try to maintain its presence. Eventually, it will fall. I'm in my late 40s, but I can't wait. This ancient software can't be made extinct soon enough!

  • Occasionally someone sends me a Word document that won't open in anything else, or an Excel document with a godawful number of columns and I have to use Microsoft's online office. I certainly don't subscribe to it.

    I guess they charge for the copilot part?

  • This shouldn't be a surprise, but I didn't expect it: We use Microsoft Outlook as our email client at work. I use the web-browser version and was typing an email to a customer. I later went to LinkedIn for an unrelated reason/topic and, even though I use an ad-blocker, there were "articles" on those LinkedIn web pages regarding the specific topic of my email to the customer.

    I know Microsoft owns LinkedIn. I'm sure we pay money for our Microsoft stuff; are we still the product?
  • They added copilot and auto-bill $30 extra now fuck you.
  • Hoping to get college students hooked on it....or it's that bad.

  • Give them a taste for it , then once they addicted to their product charge the earth for it.

  • You can either get a sip of milk today--or the whole cow in your backyard.

  • Awesome, some student can use Outlook365 to email m$ to tell them about Google Docs.

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