Academic Pricing
In what appears to be a pretty dramatic shift in policy, Avid is now selling Media Composer to students and teachers for — just $300. You don’t seem to need an academic P.O. anymore — just valid ID. I saw a couple of web sites that have it, including this one: Academic Superstore.
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Splice Now 
October 1, 2007 at 2:33 pm
any word on an upgrade price from acedemic xpress pro?
October 1, 2007 at 6:22 pm
Actually, there are eligibility requirements listed next to it. It’s not available for students or teachers.
October 2, 2007 at 10:34 pm
Duke,
If what you say is true, this is the complete height of stupidity. It’s as if Avid decided that the best way to get their product into as many hands as possible was to make sure that it was difficult to get it into as many hands as possible.
Put another way (if possible — it’s nearly midnight and I’ve been going for two straight days), there is no friggin’ way that any student of mine is going to wait until USC’s purchase order systems can handle their MCSoft order. I repeat — no way. They’d rather march a little further down the aisle and pull a copy of FCP off of the shelf.
It makes no sense to me to make this product ostensibly available for $295 to students and then make it as hard as humanly possible for them to buy it at that price. If I didn’t know better, I’d worry that Avid was TRYING to hand the student market over to Apple. Many of my students are thrilled to death that MCSoft is within price range now. But they’ll never buy it, if they cant walk down to our bookstore and buy it there.
October 3, 2007 at 5:54 am
I agree with you Norm. The idea that it might be easier for students to get their hands on MC-software would be terrific and would change the playing field.
I’ve made some calls to student stores and it seems that the policy isn’t consistent.
Does anybody else have any experiences to share?
October 3, 2007 at 6:57 pm
Steve, this is totally incorrect! They are not selling it to students and teachers for $300US, they are only selling it to schools for this price. Avid remains out of reach.
October 8, 2007 at 11:30 am
Well, it takes MORE than a student ID. My producer has a kid attending USC and she wanted a copy, so she had to send in a photocopy of her Student ID, Driver’s License, and class schedule. So they REALLY want you to prove you are a student.
Still…this is a GOOD thing. Getting Avid into the hands of students who can learn this on their own (something they have been doing with FCP for years) broadens their skill set.
Man, I wish I had all these options when I was a student. Nope…school lab and the KEM for us. Or the 1/2″ offline decks…or Moviola. Avid arrived at the school my final year there…and I was VERY LUCKY to get to work on it (v5.5).
October 9, 2007 at 4:33 am
Regarding USC — when did this occur?
October 10, 2007 at 8:23 am
This occurred just last week. I read your post, mentioned it to my producer who said his kid was attending USC and wanted to have media Composer to practice with on her own time….so she didn’t have to go to the lab. And she already had FCP, but knew this is still very much an Avid town, so she wanted the Avid software.
But, it appears that the academic pricing ISN’T for students. You still need to be a school to get this pricing. Here is the response that was received in an e-mail from the Academic Superstore:
“Thank you for your recent order! Unfortunately, we are unable to
complete your order at this time. The software you ordered was a Schools
Edition and the software manufacturers restrict those products to
schools only. Students are not eligible to purchase them at all. If you
would like to replace the part number with another one, we can certainly
do that if you send that number to us. We can also either remove that
product from the order or we could also cancel the order entirely.
Please let us know how you would like to handle this situation so that
we can clear your order for shipping.”
That is either a mis-print or a really old pricing scheme that they abandoned a while ago.
Man, I thought Avid was finally getting wise and pricing it so students could but it for themselves…make it stiff competition for FCP.
October 10, 2007 at 10:31 am
The Avid site says that for that pricing a Purchase Order is still required:
http://www.avid.com/promos/mcAcademic/index.asp
October 12, 2007 at 5:12 am
Here’s a clarification from Amy Peterson at Avid:
Below is a list of academic partner schools. The only one in LA seems to be USC.
http://www.avid.com/solutions/education/aap/list_partners.asp
October 12, 2007 at 8:57 am
Odd…because she (the producers daughter) IS enrolled at USC…and they declined her attempt to get the software. It seemed promising at one point, they asked for copies of her class schedule, receipt of tuition and student ID…but then said “no, sorry, schools edition and for schools only.”
I’ll forward the link.
Man, why is Avid being so hard assed about this?
October 12, 2007 at 3:30 pm
I know it’s been easier for some people. With proper ID, at USC you can just buy it.
October 23, 2007 at 1:37 pm
You can get student discounted Avid products at CampusTech too.
October 27, 2007 at 11:30 pm
Not that this will be of any help, but it seems that the USC problem tended to sit with bookstore personnel, who weren’t savvy to the newest rules.
This, of course, begs the question as to why Apple is so much better at school bookstore relationships. The guy who is the Apple rep spends the two weeks before and at the beginning of the semester camped out at the bookstore “helping” students make the proper choice on hardware and software. I’ve never seen an Avid rep there.