Students, tired of the beginning of the semester crunch? 

It's a familiar scene, at Universities across the country: every year, hundreds of students pour into the bookstore in the first days of school, swelling the courtyards and bogging down your schedule with aimless waiting.  You plan ahead of time, print lists of the classes you're taking (and hoping to get into) and the books you need, only to find that the hour you have before class disappears as you slowly trudge down the queue.

This year, get ahead of the curve by buying your books early! 

Amazon.com today announced that it's opening up it's premium service, dubbed "Amazon Prime," to the entire national, educational community, as part of a program called "Amazon Students."

This essentially allows anyone within the US (sorry, international students) who has an active ".edu" email address, and is taking at least one class, to register for a year of the paid service (normally about $80 for the year) entirely free.  I've confirmed that there is no additional contract, obligations, or charge for cancelling early, which is something that often worries me when I hear about these kinds of programs at first.  Rest assured that as it stands now, the service is entirely strings-free. (and please let me know if you find some hidden language or terms in there!)

Prime gives 3 core benefits:

  • Unlimited 2-day shipping on any item from the Amazon store
  • No minimum order size
  • In a rush? Upgrade any order to 1-day delivery for $4. Not bad for those last-minute schedule changes!

In addition to expedited, free delivery, Amazon Students also aims to draw students in closer to the Amazon brand by offering promotions, coupons, and special discounts throughout the year; the advantage to students is obvious – a drastic reduction in shipping charges and list prices for the financially strapped college student – and the advantages to Amazon are equally so – increased loyalty to the Amazon brand, likely lasting throught the college career and extending especially into holiday impulse purchasing.

(Don't forget, they place no resirictions on what you ship; looks like you can sign up any time, even for your favorite Christmas/Chanukah/Kwanza/Winter Solstice celebration!)

Thanks to TechCrunch and KC Wayland for the tip.

Update: Successfully signed up for the service.  Took all of about 2 minutes.  Login/Sign up for an Amazon account, fill out a 6-question ("What's your major?") form, check the Confirmation email response, and you're done!