Microsoft launches Student Advantage program for over 35,000 schools, offers free Office 365

Back in October of this year, Microsoft unveiled “Student Advantage,” a new program that brings Microsoft Office 365 Education to more students worldwide. Office 365 Education, tailored for schools, provides the same cloud-powered Office applications such as Word, PowerPoint and Excel anywhere, across any device.

Today, this program kicks into high gear and is available to more than 35,000 educational institutions worldwide. This allows schools to have the most up-to-date versions of the productivity tools they need to succeed.

“All schools and universities that license Office 365 ProPlus or Office Professional Plus for staff and faculty can now also provide access to Office 365 ProPlus for students at no additional cost. We’re already working with schools that have signed up for Student Advantage, including the Sao Paolo State Department of Education (SEE), which is providing access to Office 365 for over four million students,” Microsoft stated in an official blog post.

Microsoft wants to help prepare students for the technology skills required in the workforce by offering these tools to students for free. According to Microsoft, nearly 98% of students are already using the Office productivity suite. However, with this Student Advantage program, students can get their hands on the latest Office 365 suite, powered by the cloud, across all their devices.

Microsoft even mentions in the blog post that Office skills are highly sought after five times more than any other productivity tools. Microsoft took a jab at Google by mentioning that even Google’s own job postings require competency with Microsoft Office.

To learn more about Student Advantage, head over to the Student Advantage website.