Microsoft has announced a new program called DreamSpark to get over $2000.00 of free developer tools into the hands of college students. It is a bit too late for me, but I still wouldn't mind having that 12-month free membership to the XNA creators club.

The full list of free software:

• Visual Studio 2005 Professional Edition
• Visual Studio 2008 Professional Edition
• XNA Game Studio 2.0
• 12-month free membership in the XNA Creators Club
• Expression Studio, which includes Expression Web, Expression Blend, Expression Design and Expression Media
• SQL Server 2005 Developer Edition
• Windows Server 2003, Standard Edition
• SQL Server Developer Edition
• Virtual PC 2007
• Visual Basic 2005
• Visual C++ 2005
• Visual C# 2005
• Visual J# 2005
• Visual Web Developer 2005

Full information can be found at https://downloads.channel8.msdn.com/