a change to per user pricing is a huge change over how MinecraftEDU licensing works. $5 per student per year as opposed to the $18/license MinecraftEDU is priced at. With MinecraftEDU licenses if you are only going to have 30 licenses in use at one time (one classroom) you only need 30 licenses. 30 MinecraftEDU licenses runs a little over $450, one time cost. For a 500 student school under Minecraft: Education Edition you could be looking at $2,500 per year.

That's making some assumptions about how they will restrict the license usage.

I doubt many schools will see the benefit of having to buy a license for each individual student. The reality is that very few teachers are equipped with the skills to deliver a lesson using Minecraft, so mostly you will see a handful of teachers (at best, more likely zero or one) in a school embrace this.

Another important question: will you still be entitled to a separate full retail Minecraft license for every education license purchased? That is a significant component of the current MinecraftEDU licensing. It enables school events and lessons using any mod or plugin, with self-hosted servers.

I don't see this as all negative. I am hopeful that with the increased $$ flow will come better curriculum that is more generally applicable, as well as new features that might enable teachers who are novices with Minecraft to successfully use it in the classroom. Currently I would say only 1 out of 20 teachers has the skills required to pull this off today.

$5/student/year is really a steal, when you think about it in the bigger picture. That's like 2-3 days of school lunches, more like a single day, if you factor in school breakfasts.

Or one Starbucks bullshitaccino...