The New York Times is offering students and faculty free access to TimesSelect.
TimesSelect, which everyone else has to pay for, gives you access to columnists and the New York Times archive.
It's a neat deal, but kind of redundant, since I bet most faculty and students have access to the same content through database subscriptions. For instance, here at LaGuardia, you can access current Times news and columnists through LexisNexis and historic content through ProQuest Historical Newspapers.
And I suspect that's why the Times is "giving away" the access to students and faculty: they weren't populations who needed to pay for it anyway, so the cost is probably relatively small.