The company I work for, BlueEarth, LLC, sells a few different "Generic" 8051-based development boards and kits (see Links).

We have had a few universities purchase a quantity of the start kits for coursework. Some of the board designs are over 10 years old but are still useful. The most popular package sells for $129 and includes 89C52-based board with ADC and EEPROM, interface board serial cable, manual, power supply, etc. The main selling point is ease of use. When the board powers up, the BASIC interpreter says "OK" at 9600 baud. Sample software and library routines are already in code memory, including reading the ADC, scanning a keypad, writing to an LCD, etc.

Yes, you could design a modern ISP-based CPU board for less, but then you would also need to develop all the drivers and software examples, on your own time.