The few colleges that didn't link to Apple's Education Store featured prices that were on average 44% costlier than outside back-to-school deals. At first glance, this may sound like an easy win, but at the very least we recommend searching for alternative deals before settling for Apple's discounts. That said, many colleges participate in Apple's back-to-school promo, and clicking through their online store redirects you to Apple's storefront for students. Stores such as Best Buy are known for offering better deals than Apple, and while these authorized retailers may not trump Apple's offerings by wide margins, we've found some outside deals that top Apple's educational discounts by up to $50. However, we've found that Apple's back-to-school deals can be easily beaten. Beware Apple's Educational DiscountĪs a student, you may think Apple's educational discount is the holy grail of Apple deals. Shoppers can however inquire if campus computer purchases include add-ons, repairs, extended warranty, or similar extras. One pricey campus deal did include an impressive 4-year warranty but aside from that, we could find no justification for the price differences we saw. Even if the store is actually selling the newer Retina version, that price tag is still $70 more than what Apple charges directly. We've seen this tablet for just $199 on more than one occasion this summer, which makes the University of Virginia's price a 135% increase over this summer's best deal. The University of Virginia, for instance, is selling what appears to be the first-generation iPad mini 16GB Tablet for a whopping $469. In addition, many campus stores suffered from a very limited selection of devices, oftentimes selling older laptop models or underpowered systems at higher-than-average prices. On average, we found that campus laptop prices were 35% more expensive than back-to-school deals for the same systems, purchased elsewhere. Campus Prices Are 35% Higher Than Back-to-School Deals For accuracy, we only compared items with similar configurations and hardware. We then compared the colleges' prices to recent deals we've posted on our site. So our final list consists of the top five public schools and one private school.įor each campus store, we looked at its cheapest laptop, its most expensive laptop, and its cheapest tablet available. While our intent was to look at the computer stores of the top five private and top five public schools, we found that many private schools didn't allow access to their online bookstores without a valid student email or ID.
News & World Report's college rankings for private and public universities. In some instances, we found devices that were up to 135% more than what you'd pay at a normal store. We looked at the online bookstores of six universities and found that laptops and tablets are also sold at higher-than-average prices. Campus bookstores are renowned for their price gouging, but it turns out textbooks aren't the only items they sell at a premium.