I blogged about this earlier today, but here's the more detailed explanation:

The Microsoft DreamSpark student program (http://channel8.msdn.com) makes available, at no charge, a broad range of development and design software for download. The program is now available to more than 35 million college students in Belgium, China, Finland, France, Germany, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the U.K. and the U.S. Broad global coverage, as well as an expansion of the program to high school students around the world, potentially reaching up to 1 billion students worldwide, will continue throughout the next year.

This program will allow free access to several commercial products, including Visual Studio 2005/2008 Professional and an academic subscription to the XNA Creators Club.

if you want more information about DreamSpark (which includes free XNA Creators Club subscriptions for students), go here.

Will the XNA part of the program be available under MSDNAA? Or do I have to wait for my site to take part in the program to access the XNA Creators Club Subscribtion-Trial?

Cu,

Oliver Kuhl

Chris Covington:

Very nice, but I don't understand why it wasn't announced yesterday during the XNA Developer Day.

DreamSpark is run by the Academic team, they're not a part of the XNA organization and have their own programs to run.  XNA Game Studio is a part of DreamSpark though, so we're a participant in their program.

neutr0n:

Will the XNA part of the program be available under MSDNAA? Or do I have to wait for my site to take part in the program to access the XNA Creators Club Subscribtion-Trial?

Cu,

Oliver Kuhl

The XNA Creators Club Academic Subscription will be available through MSDNAA, but that must be driven by the school's faculty, not the student.  DreamSpark is a student-oriented program.  MSDNAA is a faculty-oriented program. 

Hope that helps!

You say that the DreamSpark program will be expanded to include high schools in the third quarter of 2008.

I'm a student studying at a sixth form in the UK. Would it be possible for me to take part in the program? I have an NUS student card... could i use that?

Amazingly enough the only way to be a creators club member is to set up the account on a xbox. So yes you need one.

However you can use someone elses xbox. Just log in with your gamer tag and use the code. Then your gamer tag will be updated. Its useful to move your gamer tg around using a memory card.

Jeff:

Is the one year subscription renewable every year while I am a student? Or is it just a one time thing?