WordPress.com targets the next generation of web creators with a free student plan

WordPress.com maker Automattic is expanding into education with a new, free product designed for teachers and their classes called WordPress.com Education . The suite for classrooms includes a full WordPress.com domain for each student, plus free domain names (on the .blog or .art domains) and plug-in support.

Teachers can provide students with access to the program for free for the first year, without having to put a credit card down or enter a trial.

This allows teachers to use the technology in courses that teach students how to build websites, or for other classroom needs such as group projects that incorporate website-building.

Unveiling the product at its annual WordCamp US conference on Monday, the company noted that the new Student plan isn’t a stripped-down version of its product. It includes 6 GB of storage, backups, staging sites, and other tools, as well as support for plugins, SFTP/SSH, phpMyAdmin, and Studio Sync.

Automattic’s best known for its website and blog hosting service, WordPress.com, which runs the open-source WordPress software that powers about 43% of all sites on the Internet. Despite its ubiquity, though, WordPress is not necessarily the go-to platform of choice these days for young people establishing their web presence for the first time. Instead, those users often opt to simply set up social media profiles.

More importantly for Automattic, the student plan will let WordPress be integrated into the classroom to train the next generation of website professionals. And, because it’s free, it can make inroads in underfunded schools as well.

When the first year of use has ended, students can choose to subscribe to the service for $2 per month ($24/year). If they don’t, their work won’t disappear; their site will just drop down to a free WordPress.com site on a free domain. All their web pages, posts, comments, and uploaded media will stay intact.

The company says it piloted the program with 5,000 students across 27 countries, and the majority of educators (88.9%) said access to the program improved their students’ employability. A further 81.5% apparently said the program improved students’ entrepreneurial capacity.