I own two Pis.
The Raspberry Pi is all nice and dandy. And I love mine for tinkering with.
But in all honestly you could build both a cheaper and more powerful PC by talking a walk to Revlon plaza or nearby and getting:
- 5k CPU
- 5k TFT monitor
- Mouse and Keyboard
- Linux (download, not necessarily gotten at Revlon)
In the case of the R-pi, the $35 is only for the little CPU. Cool as it is, it is not powerful enough for many things; and many peripherals, even keyboards and mice, still do not work well with it. (I am not against the R-pi in any way, I love it but we have to be realistic).
My bigger point is, its been possible for years to get cheap PCs locally for our schools. We just don't have the will to do so at the moment.