[jspatz1]

If simplicity, reliability, and ease-of-use are your main goals for students, I'm not sure you can do much better than the Replicator 2. We were printing within a 1/2 hour of opening the box, and have printed dozens of projects with no trouble or tinkering at all. Have cleared a couple of clogs, and of course alligned the table regularly, but that is all. Makerbot's goal was to make a true use-it-out-of-the-box appliance that almost anybody could use, and I think it is that. Yes, it is toward the high end of the price scale for PLA printers, probably for a reason.