It’s a secret that companies do not advertise and one that could save the Northeastern Illinois University students a significant amount of money. Wondering what secret I’m referring to? NEIU students can purchase various computer software, hardware and supplies such as laptops, mice and even software from Adobe and Microsoft at discount prices.
The NEIUport website (http://neiuport.neiu.edu) has links to four such web sites, buried and hidden in within the Student Computing Services portal. To access the links, go to the NEIUport homepage mentioned above, click on the “Student Academics” tab, scroll down and to the right and under “Student Computing Services,” click the “Computer-Related-Discounts” link.
Once there the links are self-explanatory. Under the “Hardware Purchases” heading the Dell and Apple links are used to buy respective hardware at discount prices. Additionally, under the “Software Purchases” heading, students can access e-academy to buy software at discount prices as well as campus tech’ for the same, as well as a plethora of different electronic devices, software and hardware.
The e-academy link provides a short list of software available at an incredible discount to NEIU students. For example, Windows Vista Business Upgrade is available for $69.85. It normally retails for $199.99. Registration is required using your campus email and the password will be email to this account.
Campus tech brings the user to an entirely different website, campustech.com. This website can also be accessed by going directly to the site (www.campustech.com) instead of linking through NEIU’s website. Here, there is a muc 5h wider variety of merchandise for sale. Cameras, Adobe software and even calculators can be bought at a discount. However, there is a catch.
The catch is that Campus tech must verify that the person buying the materials is actually qualified to do so at an academic discount. There are several ways to do this. The easiest is to use eVerify, which would verify the student’s enrollment automatically. However, Northeastern Illinois University is not listed as a participating university. Student Computing Services has a link to campustech.com, so it is unclear why Northeastern is not listed.
The other way to verify is to scan and e-mail campus tech a copy of a current student class schedule and a valid form of ID, such as a driver’s license. Campus tech is generally very accommodating about assisting with the validation process.
These links are worth checking if there is a bit of holiday spending left to do in the New Year. Sometimes the savings are small and sometimes they can be immense. Whatever the case, it’s to a student’s advantage (as well as faculty, staff, and other persons involved in the university) to give these websites a try.
David Mosher can be contacted at d-mosher@neiu.edu