Back to School Time: a Used Mac for The Kids?
See also Making an Old Dog of a Laptop Run Like a New One: Wow!.
OWC has a good article on saving money for parents: Back to School: Using a Vintage MacBook as an Inexpensive Student Computer.
Macs aren’t cheap and any parent with more than one child knows just how fast costs can add up, just for food and shoes and clothes! Let alone computers.
As for new models, B&H Photo has the Apple 13.3" MacBook Air (Early 2014) 1.7 GHz / 8GB / 512GB for $600 off at $1249.