Microsoft debuts Office 365 for students, $79 for 4 years of college

Microsoft is taking its subscription-based productivity suite Office 365 into the realm of higher education in the first quarter of 2013 with a new package called Office 365 University.

At just $1.67 per month, college students can get Office 365 for their entire four years of undergrad for just about $80. The subscription includes the usual Office Home and Student Gang: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote, plus Outlook, Access, and Publisher which aren't available in the $119.99 desktop version (but are only available to Windows PC users.)

Office 365 University will be available to full- and part-time college students, as well as faculty and staff of accredited institutions. As is typical for education discounts, a product activation process is required, unless of course the subscription is purchased at a Microsoft Store, where pre-purchase verification can be done.

Starting today, students who buy Office University 2010 or Office University for Mac 2011 will also receive a free subscription to Office 365 University when it becomes available. This essentially gives students using the desktop software free use of Outlook, Access, and Publisher for a year.

Photo: Andreser/Shutterstock (with sarcastic modification by Tim Conneally)