The U.S. Apple Store for Education now requires shoppers to prove they are a university student or teacher before they can get products at a discount. Before now, it essentially operated on the honor system, which was a giant loophole.
After the change, shoppers can’t even see the discounted prices without getting verified first.
Update: Apple flip-flopped on this change. Read more in, “Apple’s educational discount ‘loophole’ is back!“
Apple Store for Education stops using the honor system for discounts
The Apple Store for Education website now tells users they must “start by verifying your eligibility” before getting to the discounts. That’s followed by a link to UniDays, a third-party service that handles the verification process. This is required “to verify your student or staff status,” according to Apple.
Apple’s education discounts were always supposed to be only available to university students, students accepted into university, parents buying for university students, and teachers and staff at all levels. But the Mac-maker essentially took customers’ word about their status.
Apple reserved the right to check later to see if shoppers qualified, and bill them the extra cost for the gear they’d bought if they had fibbed. But there were no up-front checks. At least not in the United States. Apple U.K. already used UniDays to confirm that shoppers were students or educators.
Apple didn’t announce the change, but Reddit users noticed it recently. The policy reportedly wasn’t yet in effect during the 2021 holiday shopping season.
So if you’re a student hoping to score a Mac, be prepared to jump through a few hoops before making your purchase. If you’re not a student, seems the old loophole has been closed.
