What are the Limitations of the Adobe Student & Teacher Editions?

The Adobe Student and Teacher Editions look like a great deal. They offer big discounts, as much as 80% off normal prices. They’re available for most of Adobe’s product line, including Creative Suite 5.5, Lightroom 3, Acrobat X, and Elements 10.  They can be purchased by anyone who qualifies – primary and secondary school students, college or university students, faculty, teachers, and administrators.  Even part-time students or teachers can be eligible, and there is no age limitation. They’re available pretty much worldwide in many languages on both Windows and Mac, and you don’t need any kind of coupon or promotion code to get the deep discounts.

So what’s the catch? Is the Academic software different or limited somehow? Is there any sort of time restriction, time limit, or time out – do Adobe Student Editions expire? Or are they unusable for commercial purposes?

The answer to all of these questions is fortunately no: all Education products are identical in features and functionality in every respect to the current standard versions – the only differ­ences are the prices and some of the licensing terms… The prices, as mentioned, are a real bargain – for example, instead of US$999 for Adobe Photoshop CS5 Extended, you pay only $199; instead of $1,799 for CS5.5 Design Premium (Adobe’s most popular suite with eight major products including Photoshop Extended), you get it for $449.

Since CS5, the Student and Teacher Editions can be utilized for personal as well as commercial use, for all academic customers worldwide. So yes, you can sell your services or anything you create, or use these products in developing a side business or online venture. And after graduation or completion of coursework, you can continue to use the software on your personal systems; there is no usage expiration and the tools will continue to work.

But it’s true there are some limitations as compared to the regular editions… Happily they are all fairly minor:

• Each eligible person may purchase only one copy of each product per platform per year.
• Student & Teacher Edition software may be used on your privately-owned computer only.
• The software is not transferrable, meaning it may not be resold or given to others.
• You validate eligibility after placing your order to receive your unique serial number key.
• Student editions cannot be upgraded to other education editions – but do receive Adobe’s discounted upgrade pricing to all regular commercial versions (say for a future release like CS6 or CS7), or you can purchase another student edition if you still qualify. But the student price on a new release is often lower than the commercial upgrade price anyway, so you can just choose which is cheaper depending…  Bottom line, this is another substantial savings and advantage of owning these – basically you get your future releases discounted as well.

So why take your chances on the risks and malware in a pirated or bootleg version of CS5.5 when you can get the real deal – legitimate, supported, and completely safe – for up to 80% off, direct via instant download from Adobe?

Here’s a very helpful Student & Teacher Eligibility Guide that should answer other questions you may have, including documentation requirements…  Documents dated within the last six months are considered current.