Some of us (neither students nor fat salary receiving end) are struggling to make ends meet and try their hand at app development as a way out of struggle.
If you're a small, newly founded, company you can get a free copy of Visual Studio Ultimate, together with all the documentation and training material you need, by signing up for BizSpark
According to the article you can continue to try your hand at app development for Windows 8 and Windows Phone 7 using the free "Express" version of Visual Studio.
