Microsoft yesterday made it easier for school and university students to obtain a free subscription to Office 365 by sidestepping institutional IT and going to the self-serve line.

A year ago, the Redmond, Wash. technology company announced “Student Advantage,” a program under which educational institutions that licensed Office Professional Plus 2013 or Office 365 ProPlus could also hand Office 365 ProPlus subscriptions to students, free of charge.

The program was available to both K-12 and higher education.

Office Professional Plus 2013 is traditionally-licensed software — sometimes called a “perpetual license” because it can be used as long as one wants to stick with it — while Office 365 ProPlus is a subscription service, part of Microsoft’s broad effort to shift customers to a rent-not-buy model.

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