I totally understand where Steve is coming from on this however MS Office use does 2 things.
1.) You have to learn how to use MS Office, in my case even some of the advanced features which helps me in the workplace believe it or not.
2.) MS Office is pretty much universal in business use, so there is a ton of support out there for it.
However Steve is right in that it is very expensive for what it is. I recommend you either purchase the software through your school, as I did, and take advantage of the discount there or go to Amazon.com or something and purchase Microsoft Office "Student/Teacher Edition" which is the basic package minus Access and a couple of programming features for databasing. I use the Student/Teacher Edition and have not been limited in any way whatsoever. Personally I tried Open Office and found following directions using MS Office easier.