Students Get Free Sprint Service for a Year (There’s a Catch, of Course)

It'll cost a lot more up front, but it's a good deal anyway.

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Good news, kids! Your hip Uncle Sprint is out to prove it’s hella fresher than all those other whack service providers. Is this the cool way to say that? Sprint is the Miley Cyprus and Jason Beaver of the phone world! Twitter at me L8R, okay?!

Anyway, the headline is that Sprint is giving students – any students, from elementary school to higher education – free service for a year when they purchase a qualifying phone.

“Service” means unlimited voice minutes, unlimited text messages and one gigabyte of data for smartphones. You can add unlimited data for $10 more a month; non-smartphones get unlimited data thrown in.

Now for the fine print. You’ll need to go to a Best Buy store to sign up for this (not a big deal), and you’ll need to pay way more than you’re used to paying for a phone (kind of a big deal).

Click here to see the entire list of eligible phones and their prices. Just for reference, the iPhone 5s starts at $700, the iPhone 5c starts at $600, the Galaxy S4 starts at $650 and the HTC One starts at $600. You’ll have to pay a one-time $36 activation fee, too.

If you can afford that initial outlay, though, this is a wheel of a deal. After the first year is up, the cost of the plan will go up to $70 a month, but you’re not locked into a two-year agreement like usual. Cancel your service in time, and you’ll be fine.

The offer is good until January 4, 2014. More info: Sprint Student Deal [BestBuy.com]