For a course that is nothing more than an 'Introduction' to Linux?

I remember a fellow years ago that offered an expensive 'study at home' course on Solaris, but his price was well under $2,400 and he actually included a complete Sun workstation with the course...

Where is most electricity generated in the alternative methods you listed?

Capacity factor for the U.S. is about 0.145. That is, for every 1000 Watts of PV you have installed, it'll generate on average 145 Watts throughout the year after factoring in night, weather, angle of the sun, dirt on the panels between washings, etc. So those 28.8 m^2 will actually only generate 3888*0.145 = 536.8 Watts average through the day. 536.8 Watts * 1 day * 24 h/day * 3600 s/h = 36.38 MJ in a day. Or enough to move the bus 10.7 miles per day.

Or you could just add 10% more batteries to the bus.

Buses have their roofs painted white to keep from baking the kids on the (un-air conditioned) bus, cover the roof with black solar panels and you'll likely need to add AC to the bus, eliminating any increase in range with energy spent running the AC cooling the kids...

Unless you want to take kids on a field trip...

Most districts have bus garages where they store their buses overnight, you typically heat that area anyways for the maintenance crew.

No, they don't - they really, really don't.

I can't imagine a single school district that can justify the expense of such a structure - it is more cost-effective to leave them outside.

How many kids could you get in such a bus?

What do you imagine a replacement battery pack will cost for a school bus? And remember, you'll be going through batteries like no one's business because school buses are run for (typically) two runs in the morning and two runs in the afternoon, requiring probably two complete charges in a 24 hour period, five days a week, 40 weeks a year...

That's a lot of batteries.

Are we including battery replacement in this imaginary 'reduced maintenance cost' scenario?

You really think there are 40 year-old busses on the road carrying school children?

Trust me, that is not the case.

If the bus has a useful range of 80-100 miles and would otherwise consume 16 gallons to cover those 80-100 miles, that puts the MPG of the bus at between 5-6 MPG...

Seriously? They drive school buses that are THAT inefficient?

An OEM charging customers to deliver a custom suite of software on a mass-market retail computer - shocking!

I can't believe Dell is charging money to install a third-party application on a brand-new computer! I can't believe Dell is charging customers more if they they want something other than the standard product they offer... Where will this all end? /sarcasm

Who would even think to request Dell install a trivial third-party app like Firefox on their new computer, and who, upon making that request, would be surprised/upset that Dell wanted to be compensated for that requested additional effort?

What Microsoft calls an upgrade involves completely wiping the PC and reinstalling a fresh OS copy on it â" or ideally, buying a new device.

And...

These people are running a 14 year-old operating system, they skipped Vista and Windows 7...

What is Apple's plan to accommodate users of 14 year-old OS X?

Which Linux distribution has a plan to update a 14 year-old distribution?

I have a MacBook Pro from a few years ago, it won't support Mavericks - Apple is telling me that I either need to keep running soon to be unsupported OS X OR buy a new device.

Can you replace your iPhone with it's paid apps with your android device and it's free apps? Doing more doesn't mean it can do the same thing. Also, just because your employer choose to with paid apps on the iOS device, doesn't mean there aren't suitable free apps for your iOS device.

Do you use your iOS devices in front of clients? Your employer may have spent money on your iPhone to improve your image in front of clients.

Microsoft still only has 2% of the tablet market.

In 2012 MS had 1% of the market, in 2013 MS doubled market share to 2%, but that hides the fact that MS went from 1.1M units in 2012 to 4M units in 2013.

Microsoft doubled market share in a growing market, nearly quadrupling the number of units sold between 2012 and 2013...

...one of them must be right! ;^)