Adobe Creative Cloud has a new lower price point for students. On Thursday, May 3, Adobe announced a price change dropping the entire suite of Creative Cloud apps to about $5 a year per student for K-12 schools. The change is a steep reduction from the previous student pricing, $35 a month per student for institutions. For non-students, an all-app subscription costs $53.
The $5 per student subscription cuts the price for schools to add the program and includes the full suite of programs like Photoshop, Lightroom, InDesign, Premiere Pro and others. The subscription gives each individual student a license and sign-in, which means students can also use the software at home and not just on school computers. The student licenses will be available to schools beginning on May 15, with the price good for a single school with 500 or more licenses or a full district with 2,500 or more licenses. Adobe says that the student subscription meets the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act and other data privacy regulations for students.
Adobe says the change stems from a recent study on creativity in education. In Adobe’s research, more than half of the educators in the survey said they didn’t have access to creative tools because of budget restrictions. Adobe suggests schools should prioritize creative problem solving because positions with requiring those skills are less likely to be replaced by automation.
Along with making the software more accessible for schools, Adobe is also launching new tools for teachers. With Edcamp, Adobe will be launching additional resources for educators focusing on creative problem-solving. Next year, the company is also planning hands-on workshops in schools around the U.S. as well as online workshops for teachers. The classes will launch alongside existing resources like the Adobe Education Exchange.
The announcement comes on the heels of the company’s earlier decision to make Adobe Spark free to all schools. Spark For Education includes the premium features that users typically have to pay for over the free version of the app, to K-12 students as well as colleges and universities for free.
The student plan, available to K-12 schools, joins existing subscription options like the $10 photography plan, $20 single app plan, and $53 all-apps option. For schools, Adobe also has a per-device option to equip labs with the software.
