I would be very surprised if a school approached SILabs and were told "full price". Most manufactureres will almost pay to have their products used in schools.

I agree but here in Spain the Atmel's distributor seems is an 'microchip secret agent' we have a lot of problems to get a simply AT89C51ED2 for my final studies work even demanding the chip from the university teacher's email. The answer somethink like "buy 50 units at xx€ each one".
Dallas don't answer to our email too!!

However Microchip send trial chips to everyone that demand one.....

Anyone have a doubt that why pics are more and more used?

I can't understand Atmel and others policy.