Office 365 for Education and students under age 13

My question has nothing to do with the desktop version of office.  

Can you please explain some of the other terms you are using, or provide links to Microsoft.com web pages that explain them?  I do not know what the "standard student advantage licensing process" is, and the link you provided for it does not contain the words "student advantage" anywhere on it.  Also you continue to reference a product as "Office 365 Education Plus", which as best I can tell is not the name of any currently offered product or service offering.

You are not answering my question, which makes me think I need to restate it.  Please allow me to restate my question for clarity:

Our school does not have any paid Office 365 paid licenses.  No Volume Licensing, no Open Licensing, nothing.  Nor we do want this.

As a school we qualify for "Office 365 for Education 100% Free" as listed on this page. (which, by the way, nowhere mentions anything called Office 365 Education Plus)

We intend to provision all student Office 365 accounts ourselves.  The "IT Department" (of which I technically am a member) will create all student accounts.

I cannot find anywhere where it states student accounts for Office 365 for Education may be created for students under the age of 13 in the US.  I see this document which seems to specifically state students under 13 may not use the service.  But on the other hand, it seems ridiculous to offer an education product and exclude half the school-age students...maybe that whole document only applies to self-provisioned self-signup Office 365 for Education accounts and not ones provisioned by the school's IT department.  If this is the case, can you provide the EULA or other license terms required for this case?

Well I guess you are being as clear as you can.  You as an official Microsoft representative are stating that there is no legal way for a 12 year old student in the US to use Microsoft Office 365 for Education.

With due respect, I suggest that this doesn't seem like a great business tactic for a company trying to succeed in the education technology market.

Thank you for your reply Tina.

You are referencing a product I cannot find on any official Microsoft site:  "Office 365 Education Plus".  Can you please clarify if what you are saying applies to the free product/service offering currently labeled as "Office 365 for Education" on this page?

Do you have any further explanation for this policy?  It seems very counter-intuitive that a product intended for use in schools would not be permitted to be used by students under the age of 13.  Is it because they are typically self-provisioned by the user and the user must be able to make a legal agreement?  Is there another option where the school staff create the user and manage the COPPA requirements to get parent approval (again, this is what GAFE does...and you will lose many "sales" to Google due to this policy difference)

Thanks again,

Patrick

Hi Patrick,

According to the part What are the eligibility requirements for students, faculty, and staff to receive Office 365 Education Plus? In this article Office 365 Education Self-Sign up: Technical FAQ:

Schools qualify for Office 365 Education Plus when they license Office institution-wide for faculty and staff through Enrollment for Education Solutions, Open Value Subscription Education Solutions, or a school contract. After the school qualifies, all active full-time or part-time students, faculty, and staff are eligible and can get the plan directly from Microsoft at Office 365 for Education if they meet all three of the following requirements:

1)They have a school-specific email address provided by the school (for example, ******@contoso.edu) that can receive external email.

2)They are of legal age to sign up for an online offer individually (13 years old).

3)They have Internet access.

Thanks,

Tina