ownCloud, the open source file sync and share project, has announced a special program to get colleges and universities, public and private primary and secondary schools as well as research institutes – sharing and synching data, quickly and cost effectively.

ownCloud School Edition, targeted for schools starts at $1,250 per year for up to 350 users and $1,750 for up to 500 users. ownCloud Education Edition, targeted for universities and school systems 500 to several hundred thousand users starts at $5,000 per year for up to 500 users and 2 ownCloud instances.

With more than 500,000 users world-wide, ownCloud offers the ease-of-use of Dropbox with more flexibility and security. ownCloud users can run their own file sync and share services on their own hardware and storage, use popular public hosting and storage offerings, or both. ownCloud seamlessly integrates into a school's existing security and rights-management protocols, allowing IT managers to set security parameters while giving end users an easy-to-use tool.