As was said above, promotions are rare, however, you can do good games, and learn C2 till you stack some money with the free version for non-profit only, you are limited to html5 games, Browser games, and windows (nodejs) have a splash, and you can do games in 100 events, which i think its more then enough for learning purposes, plus it will push you harder to create a simple logic event system, in under 100 events(events are the logic blocks that you code the games or apps you want in C2).
But remember the price listed for C2 is 1 time fee, after that you dont pay nothing for extensions or other updates comparing it with Game Maker where the simplest form of it charges you for 100 bucks or more and if you want the android and other exporters you pay another 800 bucks.... so from 1000 bucks to 200 ... its a good drop of price... plus its basically as same, maybe, even more powerful.
Give it a try you wont regret it.
A tip though, i know steam versions are cheaper some times, i dont advice you buying there, since its stuck on steam interface.