Page 296 says that a Virtual Instructor Chip should cost Mp x ￥100, and that it should have an availability of its ratings total/72 hours and a street index of 1. However, Virtual Instructor Chips are covered NOWHERE in the surrounding pages.

Enter page 95. This says to consult the program size table and that instructors have a multiplier of 3. However, it also says to consult the Program Costs and Availability table on page 304 for prices, street index, etc. This directly contradicts the chart on page 296. Is there an official ruling on what to use, or errata that clarifies this? I'm leaning towards the text on page 95 versus the chart on page 296, just because page 96 is more thorough in its explanation.

Personally, I would go with the chart on p. 296, because of the rule of thumb that specificity overrules generalities.
I.e.: Despite the text on p. 95 telling us to look at p. 304, the table there only talks about general "program cost". Instructor chips are not exactly programs, and they are instead specifically discussed on p. 296.

A sample calculation sheds (IMO) more light: Let's assume an instructor chip with rating 4 in the skill it's instructing in and rating 4 instruction skill, for a total of 8. According to the multiplier table for the size, this chip needs 192 MP (Rating 8 x Rating 8 x Multiplier 3) storage capacity.
Taking this as a general program, this would mean the chip had a base cost of 96.000¥, multiplied by a street index of 2 for a total of an insane 192.000¥ just for getting proper instruction in building an IKEA table.
Consulting the table on p. 296 however, this price becomes a much more manageable 19.200¥, with a street index of 1, and total legality. It's also much easier to get, with an interval of only 72 hrs, instead of 14 days.

Also, welcome to the forum, and well done with citing your sources. Made it much easier to cobble this answer together

SR3.296 (Memory Size) says base skills (Active or Knowledge) are a multiplier of 3.
SR3.95 (Instruction) says virtual instructors have a multiplier of 3, and that all instructors need the skill at a rating of at least the student's desired rating (min 3).
SRC.49 (Training with an instructor) says the instructor can only instruct if it knows the skill at rating 3 or higher.
SRC.50 (Virtual instructors) says the virtual instructor cannot make an Instruction skill test like a real tutor can.

So for an Instruction skill of "X" and a target skill of "Y" (Y must be greater than or equal to the maximum of 3 or the desired rating):

• for an active skill
  
  • the MP is (X^2 + Y^2) * 3
  • the nuyen price is MP * 100
• for a knowledge skill
  
  • the MP is (X^2 + Y^2) * 3
  • the nuyen price is X^2 * 300 + Y^2 * 450

If you look at the gear section in NSRCG (see sig... you are using NSRCG for your SR3 game, right?) you'll see McMackie has provided Virtual Instructors with these ratings:

• Instruction 1 + Active Skill 1 (not valid according to the books)
• Instruction 2 + Active Skill 2 (not valid according to the books)
• Instruction 3 + Active Skill 3
• Instruction 4 + Active Skill 4
• Instruction 4 + Active Skill 5
• Instruction 4 + Active Skill 6
• Instruction 4 + Active Skill 7
• Instruction 4 + Active Skill 8
• Instruction 4 + Active Skill 9
• Instruction 4 + Active Skill 10

but you should feel free to calculate your own mix if you want Instruction 6 + Knowledge Skill 6 (216 MP and 27,000Y). You can edit the data files in a text editor.