Adobe Creative Cloud Licensing for Students

Student Licenses

We actually do not license software to individual students – all our licensing is provided using university budgets. In the spring, because of the COVID-19 outbreak, Adobe temporarily gave all faculty, staff and students licenses that allowed them to work remotely. Those licenses expired on July 6, 2020.

Currently, these are the options available for student licenses:

1. Students can remote into various campus labs and access the Adobe Creative Cloud apps (including Acrobat). Here are Remote Lab Access instructions.
2. Students can purchase student licenses directly from Adobe (~$20/mo).
3. Use other software options. AJ Barse has put together a video about other alternatives. Summarized here:
   • Serif's Affinity suite https://affinity.serif.com/en-us/photo/
     • Affinity Photo = Photoshop
     • Affinity Designer = Illustrator
   • For a Lightroom alternative there are quite a few, and really just depends on your workflow the three I usually recommend are:
     • Luminar - https://skylum.com/luminar
     • On1 - https://www.on1.com/
     • CaptureOne (free express versions may be available depending on what camera body you work with) https://www.captureone.com/en
   • There are free opensource DAM (digital asset managers) and RAW processors but they can be a little buggy depending on your setup. RawTherapee having probably one of the biggest community of support https://rawtherapee.com/
   • Video Editing
     • HitFlim (aka FXHome) https://fxhome.com/hitfilm-express
     • DaVinci Resolve https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/davinciresolve/
   • The only one that is a hard substitute is After Effects - I don't have a direct substitution only because it is kind of a particular app with a particular use. Depending on what you are doing in it HitFilm or Resolve might have the tools to do it.

Because of COVID, the university did purchase a small number of Adobe Creative Cloud student licenses, but those are reserved and assigned quarterly for the following classes: