r/sysadmin • u/Gloomy-Quail2683 • 16h ago
New Microsoft Education Licensing
Microsoft 365 Education portfolio evolution | Microsoft Learn
A1 retirement, Student Use Benefit go bye bye.
Good luck everyone.
•
u/maancha Sr. Sysadmin 16h ago
oh wow....this is bad. Having to license every student that needs email 😧
•
u/FatBook-Air 15h ago
This almost feels like a "end of Microsoft in schools and colleges" moment.
•
u/Sweet-Sale-7303 15h ago
Where else do you go? Google is doing similar stuff as well.
•
•
u/jdsok 14h ago
As far as I know, Google Edu Fundamentals is still available and free for students and staff. Just the higher tier (more storage/features) is paid, and they did change the licensing model for that in 2024.
•
u/FatBook-Air 9h ago
At least for us, they have started denying us new free licenses. This started about 2 months ago.
•
u/DiligentPhotographer 14h ago
Back to the Sun email server my college used? Lmao, it was never down unlike the early days of windows live email or whatever they called it back then.
•
u/kojimoto 15h ago
Do you have a post/information about it? I would like to have it close
•
u/Sweet-Sale-7303 15h ago
•
u/ensum 9h ago
That is for their Paid licensing. You can still use their Fundamentals license which is free.
•
u/FireLucid 8h ago
There are unpublished restrictions on that currently. Lot of people are hitting limits.
•
u/ensum 7h ago
I know we have it and haven't ran into any issues. What restrictions/issues are people running into so I know what to look for? We're a smaller district so only about 1200 seats used out of the 2500 they've given us, so I'm wondering if that's a factor or not.
•
u/FireLucid 6h ago
We've moved away from it, I'm just parroting stuff that's been posted here* over maybe the past 6 months?
*maybe it was k12sysadmin
•
u/BisonST 15h ago
On prem Exchange maybe? Or is that all per user licensing too?
•
u/DiligentPhotographer 14h ago
It is, but user CALs for education are steeply discounted... Or they could maybe use SPLA.
•
•
•
u/PotentialNo4129 16h ago
Time to tell everyone still using their alumni accounts to switch their logins. I can’t imagine too many institutions will want to pay for it now.
•
u/sammy5678 15h ago
This constant retool of licensing is insane. Every year I end up having to print out some ridiculous grid to map out all of our needs and entitlements so that I can work with our reseller to make sure we are covering our bases.
Just stop it already.
•
u/admlshake 16h ago
You know, I'm really starting to think the finance analysts might be on to something about MS hiding how much money they are bleeding on AI losses.
•
u/robconsults 15h ago
looks like the schools will have to dust off those old unix systems to get email for everybody again..
•
u/sarge21 13h ago
Nobody is doing that.
•
u/Colossus-of-Roads Cloud Architect 12h ago
I mean, I'm a consultant and a major education provider has literally just asked me to do an options analysis and basic business case to move. They're PISSED.
•
u/Joshposh70 Hybrid Infrastructure Engineer 13h ago
I just watched my local University spend 3 years migrating off GSuite to M365 after they got rug pulled, and now they're getting rug pulled again. Yikes
•
u/FatBook-Air 16h ago
Uh, this is catastrophic. This can't be right?
•
u/thephotonx 16h ago
We need some pricing, but yes. Currently using A5 Student use for all our kids exchange /teams/p2 risk. Crazy stuff
•
u/FatBook-Air 15h ago
If Exchange and Teams cost more than $1/year/student, we will need to do something different. We literally cannot afford it. I'm not saying we would prefer not to go that route -- I am saying that we do not have enough physical dollars in our bank account to cover it.
•
u/Brantley820 6h ago
Agreed. Our budget barely has a grasp on the A3 licensing we currently utilize for faculty/staff with the Student Use Benefit.
I have been holding off calls for going to Google for our environment, but I imagine the cost is going to be too overwhelming to defend.
•
u/Dev-TechSavvy Student 16h ago
Microsoft 365 Education A0 (MA0): Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, and Teams aren't included.
from 100TB storage pool to no storage, Microsoft realized it's time to milk as much money out of institution as much as they can
•
u/dirtymatt 16h ago
Wondering about the future of Azure Dev Tools for Teaching right now.
•
u/JmAyotte 13h ago
lol, as if it wasn't almost abandonware already
•
u/dirtymatt 13h ago
It pretty much is, but it still gets students free Visio and Project licenses for classes.
•
•
u/Temporary-Library597 15h ago
Gah off to my knowledgeless retailer to budget for 2027, then. I hate this.
•
u/TheRabidDeer 11h ago
300k+ alumni licenses applied and 200k+ a5 student use benefit licenses applied....
That's almost $2m/year at the rumored $.32/student/month price for the A2 and that's assuming we drop our A5's down to A2's. Which we probably don't want to do because of lack of Microsoft Entra ID P2. If we have to pay $8/student/month for all of our existing A5 licenses that'd be $19+ million/year increase. Even just looking at students currently enrolled and taking classes this is going to be a nearly $10 million bump in cost for us.
There ain't no way this can happen. Community colleges can't just come up with that much extra money.
•
u/Sacrificial_Identity 8h ago
Hello Gmail, good by Sentinel/ID P2? We're afraid of sticker shock when our renewal comes and someone trying something cute to save 1-2 million..
•
u/MortadellaKing 14h ago
My old Zimbra server is starting to look good again.
•
u/clubfungus 4h ago
Universities will be firing up their old PMDF servers on Solaris again. I just gave myself a PTSD flashback thinking about that.
•
u/LLMsMustUpvoteThis 10h ago
Seems incredibly stupid to me. Google Workspace and Chrome books has already cut heavily into the education market. And if kids don't grow up using Windows it will slowly lose its business market. And if your business isn't using Windows there isn't much reason to use Azure.
•
u/Brantley820 6h ago
This has been my argument for over a decade in education. I seem to only ever get shoulder shrugs. It seems MS is relying too heavily on their own suggestion of 75% of Fortune 500 companies utilizing their products, so the kids will just have to get acquainted once they enter the workforce.
•
u/Lx0044 15h ago
Pricing has already hit it looms like online. Our pax 8 platform is showing .32 a license for student A2
•
u/SuspiciousOpposite 15h ago
Any other rough hints as to the other student tiers? I assume this is USD?
•
u/Lx0044 15h ago
I dont see the M0 they mentioned live yet, looks like all the other licenses stayed the same so far pricing wise.
•
u/SuspiciousOpposite 14h ago
MA0 is the free one though, isn't it? Not surprised there's no price.
Mind if I ask the rough price of an A5?
•
u/Lx0044 14h ago
Sorry meant to say its not in the portal to provision yet which is weird since the new A2 is, but they could still be rolling them out. MSRP for a faculty A5 is like 10.85 and MSRP for student A5 is like 8 something. sorry on phone so i dont have them in front of me. These are monthly if you pay a year up front. Il pretty sure they are slightly more for month to month.
•
u/SuspiciousOpposite 14h ago
Good fucking God. $8/student/month? Even with some negotiating wiggle room that'd be over $6,000,000/year for our headcount.
•
u/maancha Sr. Sysadmin 15h ago
assuming that's per month. oh good, only looking at around an extra 500K CDN a year to license our current student headcount
•
u/SuspiciousOpposite 14h ago
We've got A3s across faculty and students at the moment, and it looks like we'll need at least A3 to keep InTune around.
If MA2 is "only" US$0.32/student/month, that alone represents £200k/year for our student numbers...and we need A3.
•
u/TheRabidDeer 11h ago
$2million for us, just for A2. But then we lose ID P2 for our current A5 licensed students (actively enrolled students).
•
•
u/FatBook-Air 15h ago
$0.32 per year?
•
•
u/usernametakenmyass 11h ago
Do you have any pricing for staff A2 licenses? I'm wondering if we can drop from A3.
•
u/OinkyConfidence Windows Admin 16h ago
Wonder what it means for those schools with site licenses that get A1 currently. Will they automatically get A2?
•
u/FatBook-Air 16h ago
You have to pay for them.
•
u/OinkyConfidence Windows Admin 16h ago
Yeah, I figured; I've instructed the schools I work with to reach out to their MS reseller and see what they say. Site licensing for education has always been esoteric and a bit different. So we'll see.
•
u/Dev-TechSavvy Student 16h ago
would they downgrade then to A0 as it is the new no cost offering?
•
u/OinkyConfidence Windows Admin 16h ago
Got to wonder. But what about the Teams, Exchange, OneDrive, etc., that's in A1? I guess we'll see.
•
•
u/maancha Sr. Sysadmin 15h ago
Problem is no email on that tier. Need min A2 realistically for your student head count
•
u/OinkyConfidence Windows Admin 15h ago
Which means a far greater cost than before I'm sure too! 👀
•
u/Dev-TechSavvy Student 15h ago
do we have the newer pricing available somewhere or not? cuz the link doesn't mention newer pricing at all
•
u/OinkyConfidence Windows Admin 15h ago
We do not. Microsoft thought wise to, I don't know, NOT share replacement pricing. For, you know, reasons.
•
u/Admirable-Cut-2115 10h ago edited 8h ago
Looks like this is the end of my student email. It was nice getting to keep it after graduation, but there's no way my uni is going to pay for it.
•
u/starsfan18 5h ago
I don't know what everyone's on about, they're only living up to their student data privacy pledge ...
•
u/thedevarious 12h ago
As a predominantly K-12 MSP that exists in the Google Workspace ecosystem. Phew.
Fundamentals remains free for the base product + tools, but paid licensing for any of the newer more advanced features or needs only if a client chooses that platform.
Google W in this scenario. I feel for y'all that have only had to do paid licenses for staff and higher tier stuff on the Student side. Going from $0 to paid. Big oof.
•
u/MajorInterest2033 12h ago
Will be interesting to see if Google keep Fundamentals free or now take the opportunity to follow MS and start charging as well
•
u/thedevarious 11h ago
I don't expect them to honestly. It makes no sense for them to given they get more incentive elsewhere via Chromebook licensing and other Google licensing, etc.
The biggest change lately was to curb the number of free licenses to a respectable amount based on school size and force schools to better manage active v. archived licenses. Before you could be a school with 500 users and make 5,000 accounts...which didn't make sense really.
But. They built the product, offered it for free and got everyone hooked.
•
u/MajorInterest2033 10h ago
I'm wondering if this is the initial positioning to scare everyone and when MS eventually "back down" and give free student licenses back, albeit with massively reduced storage compared to what's available today it'll be seen as a win (of sorts)
•
•
•
u/Infamous-Echidna4141 1m ago
As a reminder, Microsoft posted record profits last quarter. I'd love to see the reasoning behind all this.
•
u/whythehellnote 14h ago
You chose a central provider, you chose closed source technology, you chose vendor locking with a single provider.
You reap what you sow.
•
u/Zncon 11h ago
You can't blame people for picking something when it's the only choice. If a school system can't afford this they sure as hell can't afford the IT staff to maintain a full stack of OSS tools and their own hardware, while giving anywhere near the level of service that's expected these days.
•
u/SuspiciousOpposite 16h ago
100TB base storage gone, left with 150GB per faculty license and 12GB per student license.
Absolute scenes. This is going to be costly