If you plan on going to post-secondary education, you may qualify to get a student/educator edition of Corel Painter, which costs considerably less than the retail price. This also applies to other programs as well. Additionally, you may have to look into it, but if you buy a Wacom Intuos product, you should supposedly get free software to go with it, since Wacom partners with many software developers to optimize their tablets. The cheaper Wacom Bamboo series may also get free software, but it isn't likely as good since the Intuos tablets are for professionals versus the Bamboo series for consumers.

Ah, a student discount would be nice! I do plan on post secondary education, but not in art. I wonder if I could still get it at the discount?

Different software developers will partner with schools that would be relevant, so if you're going into school for law, it's very unlikely you'd be able to get a program for artsy stuff like Corel Painter. A lot of general education colleges or universities that teach multiple subjects, however, any developer that partners with them to make their software available to students will likely grant it to any student at that university regardless of what major they're going for. So whichever school you're going to, be sure to check (in this case) Corel's website to see if your school is partnered with them.

One more thing: Some software developers are more strict about giving you software explicitly for non-commercial use than others. Autodesk, off the top of my head, will hunt you down (may be exaggerating a little) if you use something for profit and they will either make you delete the content you made money on or they will force you to buy a commercial license which a college student would almost never be able to afford. Other companies are more lenient and/or don't care at all. I can't say if Corel would care or not but their software is pretty cheap so if they want you to pay, it's not bank-breaking.

One more one more thing: http://www.corel.com/corel/product/.....p;amp;segid=78 <--it's on sale right now

You're the best, Velo :) thank you very much for the info!