Apple Offers Teachers and Students Free Beats Solo2 Headphones With Mac Purchase

For their 2015 Back to School promotion Apple is offering "qualified educational buyers" a free pair of Beats Solo2 headphones with the purchase of an eligible Mac. These qualified customers must either purchase an iMac, MacBook, MacBook Pro, MacBook Air, or Mac Pro with education pricing to qualify, including build-to-order configurations.

What constitutes a qualified educational buyer you might ask? According to the details on the promotion page this means teachers or administrators and other employees at a public or private K-12 school, or employees, students or parents of a student at a higher-education institution.

For those that do qualify for the offer and are looking for a bit more 'Beats' in their life you can also opt for an upgrade for an additional $100 to a pair of wireless Beats Solo2 headphones, rather than the usual $299 price. As of right now the announcement is not yet being advertised on Apple.com apart from a small mention on its rebates page.

So far this appears to be the only Back to School promotion which is a bit surprising since Apple generally runs promotions for all of its devices. Even more surprising is there doesn't seem to be a promo for the iPads this year, despite Apple pushing the tablet into education markets and the slowing sales numbers we've seen recently.

In past back-to-school promotions, Apple has given away gift cards of up to $100 and done several promotions for other devices including $50 gift cards for iPhone and iPad purchases. This move may be a clear attempt at Apple trying to not-so-subtly draw attention to its recently launched Apple Music streaming service, which largely leverages the previously launched Beat Music subscription service. It also gives a lift to the Beats by Dr. Dre brand among younger fans of music who otherwise have chosen from many rival headphone brands.

The offer runs from today through September 18th at Apple retail sales locations. Online sales are eligible for the promotion from August 6th until September 18th.