Mount Holyoke College has registered as a participant in Amazon's AWS Educate program.
Starting January 4, 2021, AWS Educate Starter Accounts will only be granted to students who join AWS Educate through two methods:
This change will impact all students who join AWS Educate after January 4, 2021. There will be no changes to the educator portal or methods of requesting AWS Promotional Credits for students.
New AWS Educate student members will only be able to enroll into AWS Educate and get access to an AWS Educate Starter Account. This will not affect existing AWS Educate members with AWS accounts, their program benefits, or your current account.
All new AWS Educate student members enrolling at member institutions will now receive $100 in AWS usage credit pre-loaded into an AWS Educate Starter account at signup — a $25 increase. New student members enrolling at non-member institutions will continue to receive $30 in AWS Promotional Credit pre-loaded into their AWS Educate Starter accounts at signup. View a list of member institutions.
Why are we making this change?
We want to make the sign-up process easier for AWS Educate student members. With only one account type to choose from instead of two, students no longer need to enter an AWS Account ID or select an account type after registering. They may now go directly into their student portal and enjoy the benefits of AWS Educate. AWS Educate Starter Accounts also come with a capped amount of usage and do not require a credit card to sign up, eliminating the risk of members overspending if a service is not shut off.
Is there any action for me to take?
Please plan your coursework and inform your students accordingly. While there won’t be a significant change to the student user experience, AWS Educate Starter Accounts do have limited AWS service capability. View a list of services that are included in the AWS Educate Starter Accounts.
Amazon Web Services (AWS) Educate is an educational program designed to encourage learning about cloud computing systems and services by making it easier for faculty to have students experiment with AWS in their classes.
The key components of the program are:
The LITS HelpDesk can help you signup with Amazon but, as with any coursework, support for AWS Educate and Amazon Web Services would generally come from faculty and/or an academic project team as part of your class; Or through Amazon's self-service learning tools and support options.
Mount Holyoke's registration in the AWS Educate program means that if you are using AWS in your class or for an academic project, you will be eligible for free credits towards the various AWS products.
It is important to be aware, however, that you must create and manage your own personal AWS account in order to use the services. Amounts used beyond the free credits will be charged to the payment information you give Amazon upon sign-up.
You can read more about the AWS Educate program and Amazon Web Services, generally, at the following sites:
AWS Educate - main page
AWS Educate - Amazon's blog post upon the launch of the program, May 2015
AWS Free Tier - the various web services available for free credit use (you receive additional free credits as a member of a registered institution)
Getting Started with AWS - a quick sense of what web services are and how you might make use of them.
AWS in Plain English - an alternative resource for getting a basic understanding of the many web services products.
How to apply for AWS Educate credits from Mount Holyoke College
