Microsoft Offers Students Free Office 365 ProPlus and 1TB of OneDrive Storage

Students heading back to school in the U.S this fall have something good to cheer about as Microsoft has announced that eligible students can sign up for free Office 365 ProPlus plan that will also give them a 1TB OneDrive storage option. The offer is open to students who are 13 years and older, and whose school has purchased Office organization-wide for all faculty through the Microsoft Volume Licensing program.

Free Office 365 ProPlus Eligibility

The Student Advantage program offers free educational support for students who are enrolled in qualifying schools. Students can install the Office suite on up to 5 PCs or Macs as well as on other mobile devices including Windows tablets and iPads. Students who work on collaborative projects in the classroom will greatly benefit from applications such as Word and OneNote where changes can be made and viewed in real time.  The downside to the program thus far has been that students could avail of the benefit only if the school stepped forward to order an Office 365 license and create an account on behalf of the students. Now Microsoft is making that process easier by allowing students to sign up on their own. School IT managers will still maintain control and security of the accounts, but they will be freed from the burden of continually creating accounts for students.

If you are a student who is 13 years or older, you can check your eligibility by heading over to the Office 365 for Students website and entering a valid school-provided email address.

Students who qualify for the benefit will receive the following benefits for free:

• The up-to-date versions of Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Outlook, Access and Publisher
• Installation on up to five PCs or Macs, and Office apps on mobile devices such as the Windows tablets and iPad
• 1 Terabyte of OneDrive cloud storage
• Office Online

This free Office offer is currently available only in the U.S but Microsoft has plans to expand it worldwide by the end of the year. That’s not all though. From October, faculty will also get the same Office 365 ProPlus benefit as students. This means that teachers are also on the same page as students and can make use of the real time collaborative features of the Office applications to educate students and use add-ins such as Office Mix to record and publish class lectures for students.

Here’s a video explaining how you can get Office 365 ProPlus free.

Microsoft’s Free Office 365 ProPlus  student initiative will certainly help to bridge the skill gap in today’s education and prepare the young children for the jobs of tomorrow.