Apple decides against hassling students and teachers over discounts (for now)

It seems Apple had a change of heart. Either that, or the $3 trillion company realized the optics of making life even just a little more difficult for teachers and students aren’t so hot.

Apple has reversed course on its plan to force educators and learners to prove their status in order to receive educational discounts, according to MacRumors. The company had, for a brief moment earlier in the week, required proof through the student discount website UNiDAYS.

“Save on a new Mac or iPad with Apple education pricing,” reads Apple’s educator and student store website. “Available to current and newly accepted college students and their parents, as well as faculty, staff, and homeschool teachers of all grade levels.”

When Apple abruptly added the verification requirement in January, Redditors speculated as to the reason.

“Sadly I saw this coming and to be honest I do hold people on Macrumors and Reddit to blame for constantly promoting people publicly to abuse the Apple Education Online Store when they are not even students or teachers or in the education field simply because Apple wasn’t requiring education verification,” read one typical comment. “Too many people blabbing it on the internet led to Apple closing up the hole.”

We reached out to Apple and asked what inspired the quick change of heart, and if this is just a temporary pause with some sort of verification requirement to be reinstated at a later time. We received no immediate response.

Hopefully the requirement is gone for good, however, as teachers and students have better things to do than prove their status to a tech giant.