After having announced the Student Advantage benefit last year to allow eligible students to get Office 365 for free from their school, Microsoft has now launched a new self-serve model for students.

The newly-launched self-serve model will essentially give the eligible students the ability to sign up for the free Student Advantage service on their own. Thus far, the service had to be initiated by the IT department of a school, which created an account and ordered the Office 365 license on students' behalf.

The launch of the self-serve model implies that students who are eligible to availing the Student Advantage service can go to the Microsoft website and enter a valid email address which has been provided by their school.

To benefit from the self-serve model for signing up for the Student Advantage service, students should be at least 13 years of age, and they should be attending a school that which purchased Microsoft's Office 365 productivity suite for all faculty and staff.

The self-serve model will enable eligible students to receive the latest versions of Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Outlook, Access, and Publisher. In addition, students will also get 1TB of OneDrive cloud storage, as well as access to Office Online. Students will be able to install the software on up to five PCs or Macs, and Office apps on other mobile devices like Windows tablets or the iPad.