I have been active in education in Second Life for over 4 years and have been excited by the possibilities for education, the collaboration opportunities, and the number of educators in Second Life!
This price increase is horrible, ill-planned, and unfair. LL is going to lose tons of educators - maybe that is what they want. If they announced a modest price increase, that would be one thing, but to double the prices in a 3 month period is very unwise and is giving a definite message to the education community that they are unimportant and unwanted in second life.
With educators losing their jobs, cutting budgets, LL is going to lose more than educators. Many of these educators also do many other things in second life in addition to education, and will just leave second life altogether.
This move is definitely just telling educators, "go elsewhere - we don't want you anymore."