The Noctis- What to do once we have the BPO

The Uni is planning to acquire a Noctis BPO to make available to our students. Despite what students may think, the biggest concern is not acquiring the BPO, but coming up with a fair distribution of how to allocate the BPO once we have it.

Once we do get the BPO, I may put it into research, at least for a few levels of ME. If I do or not will depend on the pricing structure we're using to distribute the new ships. Let me explain several different suggestions that have been given to the Uni for how to use the Noctis, and what I feel are the pros and cons of some of the approaches.

1. BYOM:  This approach would involve putting the BPO in for the BYOM program.  Here, students bring us the required minerals, and we build them a ship. Any student would be allowed to produce the Noctis for mineral costs. It would keep the ship very affordable for Uni students, even when it is brand new. However, we have some downfalls. First, students will be getting it for significantly below market prices. 

Why is this a bad thing, you may ask.  If the Uni is giving Noctis away that cheap, students will have a huge incentive to sell it on the market at the drastically inflated prices people will be paying for the first few weeks or days. A lot of students wouldn't actually be using it for their own use, so its the equivalent of the Uni just donating the price difference (at least tens of millions per ship) to the students.  If the Uni had just sold to the market themselves, and cut out the student middleman, then the money could be applied to uni programs.

Secondly, and compounding the first problem, is that demand at these low prices will be MUCH higher than supply.  How can the Uni fairly determine who gets the first few ships, and who won't get their request filled for weeks later? This could cause a lot of drama and accusations of favoritism, especially as the first people will make huge profits reselling, while later people will not make nearly as much.

2. PYOS: This option involves using the PYOS program, where students just buy the ships at mineral prices plus a few percent. It saves the effort of gathering minerals, but has all of the same problems as the BYOM option.

3. The Auction:  This is the approach I personally favor, where any Noctis we produce will be set up on contract in the Uni to auction to the highest bidder.  This has the advantage of keeping it within the Uni, and at a more market drive price (but probably a bit lower than the price in Jita, considering the Uni demographics).

However, the higher prices also mean that the first Noctis will go to the richer Uni students.  Conversely, those richer students will drive up prices for the Noctis by bidding against each other, and reduce the obscene profits that they would make under the other options.  However, this does open up the Uni to the charge that it's exploiting its students.  I don't really understand how we can exploit people by offering them things at market prices, but I can guarantee some student or outside person will make a drama filled post complaining about it.

4. Taxes:  The last option I've had proposed to me is to do a review of the wallet, figure out which students have contributed the most in taxes over the last x weeks, and give them first chance to buy the noctis at mineral cost.  While it does reward the mission runners in the Uni, it also seems to imply that we value their contributions more than PVPers, traders, or wormhole raiders, which we don't. I'm not a big fan of this approach.

5. Auction: Simply do an auction for the first 10 Noctis off the production run, at a profit to the Uni, but not what we would get selling to market.  I also like this idea, as it does make it accessible to new students, as well as removing some possibility for drama.

6. Sell on Public Market: Just sell it at the local market hubs at market prices, and use the isk to fund Uni programs.  Students don't get a Noctis for cheap, but the Uni as a whole may benefit from our increased revenue being used to fund some nice new projects.

7. Not bother. The last option is to just say that its too much headache, and doesn't really benefit the Uni enough as a whole to make it worthwhile.  We'll just get a Noctis print at a later point of time when it is a more reasonably priced ship, and treat it like all our other blueprints (BYOM and PYOS).

What do you think? How do you feel the Uni should distribute the Noctis?  What would you do if it was your decision?