A
student can get a copy of Stata for a class, and use it happily for as
long as the hardware & OS keep supporting it (one really big reason to
have students learn stats with Stata).
Not any longer, if the student takes advantage of the great prices of the
Stata GradPlan. The prices for 8 have come _down_ from 7, but they now are
1-year licenses. A student does have the option (at about a 45% premium) of
buying the perpetual license. As an economist (and a GradPlan coordinator)
I have no problem recommending the one-year license to students (although I
would, in the interests of full disclosure, like to know what the annual
renewal fee will be. But those details can be discussed with StataCorp
off-list. Even with the new pricing strategy, the fact that you can get
_all_ of Stata's functionality (and access to all of Nick Cox' exclusive
Stata 8 creations!) for the low price on offer is a tremendous deal
vis-a-vis other vendors' offerings.
