There doesn't seem to be much info out there on this subject, so here's my experience. Bought the student membership for 99 EUR, solely for the hardware discount (I'm sure that's the case for most people). The product listing also says you get the current version of OS X and a copy of XCode as well, but they're bundled with the machine anyway.
> priceOfMembership=99
> priceOfHardware=1408
> newPriceOfHardware=1275
> echo 'Total discount: ' $(($priceOfHardware-$newPriceOfHardware-$priceOfMembership)) 'EUR (' $(($newPriceOfHardware/$priceOfHardware*100)) '% )'
Total discount: 34 EUR ( 0 % )
The percentage is 0 because Bash's arithmetic's only deal with integer values (it's actually about 10%), but it may as well be, because you should also factor in the 30 min on the phone. From some online reports, you get the impression that the discount should be around 20 %. Is Apple discriminating it's European customers… again? It's bad enough they don't state the discount percentage in advance.
I'm having a hard time hiding my disappointment. All the hassle of getting the school papers, faxing them in, solving problems (it took more than 2 weeks for my student status to be verified, finally was able to get the student certificate in through email thanks to the helpful people at ADC, kudos to them) and waiting on the phone for 34 EUR? I understand that it's more useful when you buy something really expensive, but you'd think that student members aren't necessarily the ones driving those shiny Mac Pros or even MBP-s. Most of them can't even afford a Mac at all!!!
This was the first time I ever bought an ADC product. May very well be the last as well.