Ah, I was looking at mainland pricing. So.... LL wants $600 to setup an island, and then ... $3600 a year to run an island that is cut off from the rest of the grid and no one else can use it, and the students can't leave it?
Seriously?
I could buy one heck of a beefed up server for $4200 to run OpenSim. Probably a small grid, with one simulator per core...
Though, I don't think such a project would get funded, just as a private sim on SL is unlikely to get funded for our after school project.
Okay, spare desktop PC running OpenSim it is then, I guess. :-P