It’s easy to take for granted the software you use every day as an employee at Utah State University. It costs you nothing.

It’s only when you go to get a new personal computer loaded with software that you begin to appreciate the software you use at work. That’s when you discover, in most cases, you have to pay for your software every month. Forever. Often software can no longer be purchased with a one-time fee. You pay to access it in the cloud.

Jennifer Fluckiger helps with the home-use software program for the Office of Information Technology at USU. She tries to spread the word about usu.onthehub.com where USU employees can go to save money on software.

“Life is better for USU employees when it comes to software,” Fluckiger said. “We still come across faculty and staff who had no idea of the great software deals available to them for use on their personal devices.”

For example, Office 2016 and Office 2016 for Mac, which includes Word, Excel and PowerPoint, can be had for a one-time fee of just $9.95, she said.

“Employees can get Photoshop or Dreamweaver, which are a part of the Adobe Creative Cloud, for $9.75 a year,” she said. “Adobe Creative Cloud could cost $49.99 a month if you don’t buy it through USU.”

Some of the software available to employees requires a one-year or six-month subscription but those are always less expensive than the fees that would be charged for the same products if not purchased through USU, Fluckiger said.

Office 365 and a few other software products are also available at a discount for USU students, she said.