Figma is now offering it’s excellent graphic design tools to K-12 students for free

You may or may not have heard about Figma before now, but I’ll be the first to tell you that their graphic tools are top-notch and world-class. Think of them as something akin to Google Docs, but for graphic design. If you’ve used Canva or Adobe Spark, you get the idea; but think of Figma as a more mature, more capable version of those web-based services that gets you closer in scope to something like Adobe Illustrator. While not completely on that level, the abilities on offer by Figma for designers are vast.

And then mix that with excellent, online collaboration tools and you get an idea of what Figma is all about. I’ve used it off and on over the past few years, but as my job has moved to a far less intensive design workflow, I couldn’t make sense of paying the monthly subscription to only use a small slice of what Figma can do. For larger teams, however, it is the absolute go-to tool for collaborative design on the web.

Figma + Google + Students

And now, Figma and Google are expanding on what was a beta test of a partnership to bring these tools to students from K-12 for free on Chromebooks. And this isn’t just the free tools or some dumbed-down version: Figma is offering the $75/month Enterprise Tier to students and it won’t cost them anything. Included in the deal is everything Figma has to offer, including FigJam – a digital whiteboard of sorts for brainstorming sessions.

With Figma being web-based and loads of schools already utilizing Chromebooks, School IT admins will soon be able to easily deploy Figma and FigJam to students with just a few clicks: reminding us exactly why it is Chromebooks are so wildly popular in education settings. And the folks at Figma firmly believe in getting these pro-level tools in the hands of children will only spur on their development and abilities for the future.

We knew giving students access to industry-standard design software would help them build foundational skills for the future—learning how to problem solve, think iteratively, collaborate with others, and build empathy. But we also had another hypothesis: By bringing Figma’s infinite canvas and design tooling to Chromebooks, students could engage more deeply with their work and more effectively demonstrate what they know visually—bringing together diagrams, images, mind maps, videos, and more in one place for visual storytelling.

Lauren McCann Manager, Figma for Education (via figma.com)

It is also noteworthy that this offering isn’t limited to the US. Figma’s Chromebook partnership is already expanding overseas to Japan to “answer the call from teachers around the world who want to be part of this program.” It is unclear what future targets will be, but it would be epic if every country that utilizes Chromebooks in the classroom could one day get their hands on these amazing tools for their students at no fee.

Changes like these are many times a much bigger deal than you might think at first. While a company offering their software to students for free is a huge deal, you have to remember that students weren’t exactly clamoring for Figma before this announcement. Handing this away won’t cost Figma too much more than some extra server load, but in a few years it could net them a monstrous user base.

Remember back to your days in school: you likely used the software/hardware that was provided, got the job done, and went about your day. The same is still true, and if students spend their formative years learning the ins-and-outs of Figma, you can guess what they are going to grow up and rely on in the workforce. Like Chromebooks in the classroom, this is a play to capture the intent and understanding of a generation at a time, and the team at Figma is in a perfect place to solidify themselves as the go-to graphic design tool for millions of students as they move on into the career stages of life.