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?

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Let’s face it, Adobe’s normal product prices can seem expensive, especially if you’re on a student’s budget. The regular prices for Creative Suite 5.5 range run from $199 for Contribute up to $2,599 for the Master Collection suite, which contains every CS5 and CS5.5 product available – twenty in all. As great and powerful as this software is, it could be hard to afford these prices when you’re in school.

Fortunately, Adobe offers deep discounts for education customers – up to 80% off. So the price for Contribute becomes half of what it was, $99 – while for the Master Collection it drops by almost two-thirds, to $899. For some products the price cut is even larger – for example, Photoshop CS5 Extended (the top-of-the-line version) goes from $999 to $199. The top-selling CS5.5 Design Premium suite becomes $449 instead of $1,899. And Flash Builder 4.5 falls from $249 to free – yes, FREE for students and educators…

In addition, it’s not just the Creative Suite products that are available with the savings. You can also get Lightroom 3, Acrobat X, and Photoshop or Premiere Elements 9. For example, Lightroom 3 for student photographers costs $89 instead of the normal price of $299.

All of this software is available via instant download at the Adobe Education Store for both Windows and Mac OS. Adobe’s education discounts are available internationally as well – in other countries and currencies (Europe/euro, UK/pound, Australia/dollar), and the percentages off are similar.

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Adobe recognizes that many people use both Lightroom and Photoshop, and so is offering a special deal whereby you can save 30% off Lightroom 3 if you purchase it together with Photoshop CS5 in any form. This means if you buy Photoshop CS5, Photoshop CS5 Extended, or any CS5 suite edition (which all contain Photoshop), you’ll get 30% off Lightroom when you buy them at the same time.

And it works for either buying the full version or upgrading from an older version, for either product… So if you are upgrading Photoshop, but buying Lightroom for the first time, you’ll get 30% off the price of the full version of Lightroom (e.g., off of $299/€249/£198). No promotion code is required to activate the discount, and it is valid worldwide for all Adobe Commercial store customers (Education and Volume purchases are not eligible).

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[UPDATE (May 3, 2011) – The CS5.5 Academic Editions are out, and savings are still 80%!]

If you’re a student or teacher in some capacity, chances are you can now score eye-popping savings on your favorite Adobe products…

Adobe has recently announced a new policy of student pricing that gives 80% (!) off normal prices. And even teachers and professors can still get up to a healthy 70% off most software.

For example, try Creative Suite 4 Web Premium – an eight-product package with $3,842 of total value that normally goes for $1,699, but for students – only $349. Or CS4 Design Standard – normally $1,399 for the suite, but for students – just $299! Heck, just the regular cost of Photoshop alone is $700 or more…

Speaking of Photoshop, if you want just Photoshop CS4 Extended by itself, it’s $199 for higher ed (instead of $999). Or try Dreamweaver, Acrobat, Lightroom, Elements, etc. – all at a fraction of their standard prices.

Such deep discounts couldn’t come at a better time… Check them out at Adobe’s official Education Store, or follow the clipped image below.

Were you aware there’s a place you can go anytime 24×7 that will always show you (most of) the latest and up-to-date specials running for Adobe products?

There is. Here is the current special offers page for North America and here it is for the United Kingdom. There’s also pages for Germany and France. More may be coming in the future.

Typical deals are like 10-20-30% off, or anywhere from a $25-$200 discount, or maybe a free book with purchase, depending on what’s running… In recent months there have been coupon savings on the different suite editions, Photoshop, Acrobat, Dreamweaver, Lightroom, Illustrator, InDesign, Flash Pro, and Elements. The promos are always changing, so feel free to check back for updates.