You go build a company around giving things to the education market for free and I'll build a company around selling things to the education market, and we'll see whose company is better off in five years and whose customers are better off in five years.
Also, Apple was, and still is, notorious for donating or offering heavily discounted products to teachers and schools. Why? They would get familiar with and used to using their products and purchase them in the future. It also gives them great publicity.
Many other companies do this as well. My campus computer store sells software at 90% discounts for the same reason. Sometimes giving things away is where the smart money is at.