[orrock]

you should be able to get the education discount by presenting valid student id can be primary and high schools not just tertiary.

the text editor the os comes with is called textedit and its like wordpad. the basic system would be fine for internet email word processing. if you wanted to run multiple applications at the same time and get heavy into graphics and video editing then i would suggest getting a core duo.

if you decide to get a word processor check out appleworks. unfortunately microsoft office for mac has bugs. maybe the student wont notice but in general administration the bugs are frustrating like spacing issues different on screen to print out and problems with mail merge. they are known issues on microsofts web site for several years.

i think the mac mini is good the only problem ive heard about is discs getting stuck in the drive. i havent heard of any heat problems given their size because in the past there was the mac cube which was discontinued because they would catch on fire.

[orrock]

textedit is ok. it checks spelling you can save as rtf html word and word xml. you can also output as pdf.

[discobay]

The Mac has TextEdit which is more than enough for simple word processing for a primary school student.
The academic discount is open to abuse in the pc world. At the very least you will need a copy of your niece's student id card.
The Cube was discontinued because it was over priced for the market at that time.
You will think this blasphemous but for less than an extra 1,000 you can get a monitor-less Dell desktop.