My wife has a second hand first generation MacBook Air. It is thin, light, incredibly well designed and well-built and butter-smooth in use. She loves it. The residual value, incidentally, is excellent. A 2008 1st gen still goes for £450,-- to £500,--. Can't see many 4-year old laptops do that.
It shows up as Applecare at the checkout, you can't not get it from the education store as it's a completely different site from the normal apple store. http://store.apple.com/uk/browse/home/education_routing/find_your_institution or http://apple.procureweb.ac.uk (will only work on the uni network)
