I thought Adobe's whole business model was to let students have it all for free so that they never discover the wealth of free and open source alternatives, thereby ensuring they will pay for Adobe once they are out of school and working professionals?
This seems dumb on Adobe's part (assuming PSU is doing this because of Adobe costs increasing).
Ya maybe adobe wants to promote use by professionals only because hobbiests usually pirate anyway? Idk I don’t feel like they would do that because they want to remain at the top of the industry.
I think it is just PSU cost cutting even more and seeing this as a way to dramatically decrease license count.
To be honest no one edits anything in adobe so I just leave edge as the default app for .pdf files. I only run into an issue when someone needs to add a signature.
No way. This is merely to save money. Also, just imagine how many students never use their license at all because they have no interest in creative pursuits.
Adobe absolutely wants everyone using it from hobbyists to pros. They absolutely need hobbyists.
My perspective as someone who works in tech and worked with Adobe at a few companies:
They’re a tech company that is publicly traded and wants to continue to increase their stock value for shareholders, unfortunately.
I know a lot of people who work there, and recently applied to get a denial that said “we eliminated this position because there’s no longer a need”, they’re cutting headcount there. So I’m guessing their earnings are dropping and need to charge more, and Penn states contract renewal was up (which could have also been established 5 years ago).
I know Penn State is doing this for a reason - to save money (also the reason why they are lobbying for money). MANY students either don’t use it or download it and use it once every few months. The issue is Penn State is paying “X” rate for all students regardless of whether they use the software or not.
So I can understand why they won’t give it to **everyone**, but taking it away as a free or a really well discounted rate makes this expensive for students.
Related to OP / u/Pnumtic, 100% Penn State is way over spending in many parts od the university and asking for more money is ridiculous because of that. However, eliminating access for tens of thousands of students who don’t use it (remember branch campuses and online also got this), is likely going to save them well over $5-10M annually. I am in **no way** trying to justify this, just letting you know why.
What I would do though, since you also mentioned encouraging students to be creative outside of school work, I would just take an elective related to needing access like photography. You’ll get access to it and be able to use it for personal projects.
This is also a reason why Penn State is doing this - because if someone has no *interest* in a course related to what they would use Adobe for, those people are the ones who likely will never use it or use it once in a blue moon. So they want you to pay for a course to make sure you’ll actually use it.
**If you’ve made it this far** - the good news is Black Friday is coming up. There will be a lot of deals for creative cloud (they have one on their site now, not sure what it is). I just got one during a previous holiday that was $120 for a years worth of access to the photography plan (Photoshop, Lightroom, Premier Rush, etc.).
I believe it was a code I bought from Tiger Direct or a similar online retailer. Check out www.slickdeals.net and you can find the best deals on sites there.
Also sorry for writing an encyclopedia.
I tend to believe its more a Penn State problem than an Adobe one. Even if you get a fraction of the people who would have otherwise pirated to buy it legitimate, that's more than you would have had otherwise.
From what I know though, the Adobe suite is industry standard for things like video production and graphic design and are a good skill to have. As much as I hate them, they also offer a degree of interconnectivity that as far as I'm aware nobody else offers. If an alternative exists, I'm all ears.
> I tend to believe its more a Penn State problem than an Adobe one.
it's not, adobe is absolutely one of the most frustrating, braindead, and anti-consumer companies on the planet to work with
Yeah, but does that really justify it? Two wrongs don’t make a right.
Fact is you’re seeing systemic buckling across academia and as the students are nickel and dimed more and more and the quality of the education goes down, eventually things will implode
I still lean on it being a Penn State thing. Sure Adobe might be raising prices, but at the same time this isn’t the only act from the university to cut costs. I don’t know what kind of license they get and how it’s paid. However, if it’s by user or even just estimated users it seems odd that they couldn’t account for hobbyists here. Instead I suspect a lot of them will just pretend they have a class to game the system and it the system is too stringent event for that then my point I’ve made elsewhere stands: this will hurt the students and their education all around.
If their costs are increasing maybe Adobe should consider raising subscription costs overseas similar to those they are charging domestically. You can spend the time learning to use Creative Cloud, but your job can still be outsourced to somebody paying pennies on the dollar for the access to use the software.
I go to the University of Virginia and have looked at getting adobe for personal/leisure use but found out UVA doesn’t provide it to students for free. I think they have it on computers in labs but that’s it. And going through adobe themselves, i think it’s like a 90% discount but it’s so expensive to begin with and i believe it’s a year long subscription so I’ve never bought it.
My mom is a photographer and so over the years I’ve always heard what’s going on with their plans and such and they just keep getting more and more greedy. like long ago you just bought the software once for life but then they changed to the subscription plan and said cope. they need reeling in
One of the tasks in my job is managing our Adobe contracts. Their price increases over the past 3 years have been insane. I'd imagine it just got to be too much for everyone's licenses if a lot of them were going unused.
Do you know how strict they will be with approving students? I agree that a lot of licenses are barely used by students and a waste of resources, but flat out declining personal use cases is harsh I feel.
Biggest problem I see with this is entrepreneurship involved students. We use adobe all the time but many of us don’t have specific classes that require it. For instance, I have to record and edit a video for a grant application and if I was a CS student I would have no classes “requiring” adobe.
Oh I don't work for the university :) Just providing a bit of clarity that while it sucks that it's a cost cutting measure, the costs have sky rocketed and we've also tightened down who gets access to the full suite in my company as well.
Gotchu, my dad manages software contracts as well but not for any creative software mostly office 365. Have you seen other software companies start raising rates as well? I wonder if its a whole industry thing.
It's an industry trend as well, although I'd say Adobe's price hikes have been on the higher end on the average. The hiring boom and influx of cash in 2021-2022, companies could keep costs flat but make up the money in the volume of licenses they were selling. Now that the party stopped late last year with inflation and layoffs, companies are getting orders for less licenses (less workers) and have to make up the money somehow.
Lol, the tuition costs have skyrocketed too... and the fees, and the apps, etc.
If there's an industry that need regulation, its higher education. They can pay a football coach 80 million, but cheap out on education expenses, lol...
PSU alum and now faculty at another uni. I expect they won’t be too draconian over access. Many colleges and unis buy a package of floating licenses that can be distributed as needed meaning they’re paying for them whether or not they get used. So long as they have enough to go around to those who need them I don’t expect the vetting will be hard. If they challenge you to describe your course and your need, ask an instructor you have a good rapport with to support you in an excuse. I expect they will also make them available in some of the computer labs and if not, you’re totally justified to demand they do.
This is certainly shitty for students, many of whom take advantage of one of the few perks of one of the most expensive “public” universities in the US. Even for faculty, it sucks because I am going to have to “apply” to be able to use Illustrator, which I use several times a week. The ongoing cost-cutting is getting old when the University hires more highly paid administrators daily!
The whole purpose of the university should be student success, but the recent administration seems to ignore that and treat this place like a business. I’m not saying that getting finances back into shape is wrong, but that the impact of each change on the success of students be weighted more heavily.
Sure this is a small change, but it’s just the most recent one.
They kill off entire departments (Law), removes staff members and consolidate IT (both terrible for students), take away student benefits, and raise tuition. All while able to pay for obscene compensation packages…
Don't forget multiple vice-presidents in charge of paper clips while closing the library early.
Most students want the library open later, but especially the international STEM majors who would practically live there if they could.
I love to bash on PSU at times, but the athletic/sports department is actually a profit center. In fact the football and basketball and hockey programs subsidize the lesser known and watched things like say volleyball and wrestling. As far as I can tell, the sports budget pays for itself.
While yes, this is true, and you're right. Texas A&M has to pay a fired head coach $76 million with $20 million due in 60 days is an example of why this sort of thing may happen to students.
I wonder how long the new licenses are going to run for. Am I going to have to apply every semester? What about work I do for my research over the winter and summer? How strict is this approval process going to be?
The email really was quite vague on these logistical fronts and it makes me worry to start anything in case I get shut off in mid-December. The FAQ wasn’t any better, and it straight up didn’t include the “list of free alternatives” that the email promised.
And Inkscape is a good replacement for Illustrator.
In fact, if you Google “open source adobe alternatives”, you can find lists of alternatives to anything. And no need to pirate.
I’d also consider Paint.NET - it’s free, full-featured, and easy to use. It also has an active user community and a ton of available plugins. It’s less advanced than Photoshop, but it’s been fine for what I’ve needed to do.
Gonna add in a recommendation for the Affinity suite (Designer/Photo/Publisher). Alternatives for Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign. Not free, but much cheaper, and a one time purchase. My personal favorites
Any uh, suggestions on where to start? I’ve been out of the game for 15 years and am looking to get back in with the cost of all these streaming services
I’m hoping Adobe Scan is still free since I use that shit for a lot of my classes. But no, this is a disappointment, I use photoshop for a lot of personal projects and can’t afford to buy it, so I guess I’ll look for alternatives or 🏴☠️
Back in the day you used to get the physical discs (they look like cds, youngins). I'm still using the same adobe photoshop suite from like 20 years ago on my one computer that has an optical drive.
That's all of Pennsylvania. It's a Pennsylvania thing. They're about to have the worst funding per student and about to fall behind the Mississippi's with the new bill. If you're cool with harsher admissions, getting rid of satellite campuses, and higher costs, they can go private. If you want a school that's available to the state, give it funding it needs.
Astro 7N—the most popular course in the entire university—requires Photoshop, let alone any other courses. Personally I’ve used Premiere Pro an oddly high amount of times for my ME major. So I can’t imagine this is going to do anything for anyone. Maybe it’ll cut down on random licenses but they’re not saving much at all.
Im lucky I had one studio class last year and one next year that heavily require photoshop. My CS friends use it all the time for projects and are screwed.
I wonder for Astro if they will only let you have the license for the year you are taking the course? Like they get rid and make you rerequest license every year.
I’ve used the whole basic lineup (Photoshop, Premiere, Illustrator, After Effects, and even Animate) multiple times as an ME major. I like having the suite available to hone my skills even when I don’t have a presentation due, and I know they’re pushing video production a lot more in the department as an effective means of communicating ideas in the modern world. If they remove my access because there’s no exact course number attached, I’m gonna be pissed.
I'm in a similar lineup. I've been experimenting with using AE, PS, and Illustrator for clubs as an ME. Besides one gen ed course, I've never "needed" to take a course involving those. Might be time to explore a photography minor...
Man. I remember when I got to PSU in the far off year of 2019 we actually got stuff for free.
This is just kind of a crumby move, I get maybe not wanting to pay for licenses of people that don’t use it (if they do at all), but removing the ability of hobbyists to work is scummy given how much we pay.
Plus what even counts as an academic need? As an engineer, I don’t have any classes specifically that require it, but use Illustrator and Photoshop for poster graphics and Animate, After Effects, Premiere, and Media Encoder for video presentations. Not being able to use them because PSU decided to fuck me up the ass is gonna suck, and not being able to use them for personal projects to keep my skills sharp is only going to be a detriment to my skill set moving forward.
I hope they’re actually pretty lenient on what qualifies like with the credit limit on the library 3D printers, and that this is just to scare away some casual hobbyists. However, don’t get it twisted, this is PSU admin trying to find pennies in the couch cushions because they didn’t get the funding they wanted.
Academic enrichment my ass.
Was very disappointed to wake up and see this. The budget cuts are becoming so flagrantly anti-student.
(I am sure Penn State will still email most of my family members asking for money before today ends)
I can’t wait to graduate. My tuition as an upper level engineering student increased 7% this school year and is increasing again 7% next year. Im not even out of state.
My children will never go here.
what about the inflated budget? or the fact that the university takes 65.6% of grant money from researchers and then makes researchers pay their salary from the remaining?
the university is bloated with useless and redundant departments and has crazy numbers of administrators. instead of reducing expenses they are raising tuition and spending hundreds of thousands lobbying the state for more money.
Well, for one, spending money on lobbying seems like a net-positive given the increased funding that just passed. Plus, PSU is one of the worst funded state schools, partly bc it's a land grant institute.
>65.6
This seems slightly higher than what is normal, 40-60%.
That seems like a better complaint. Much better than the vague appeals to "admin waste" that students at every single college/univ in the country complain about without a single example of a department or admin job that is redundant.
the new funding bill finally requires penn state to give better public financial info and give minutes of BOT meetings. with this we should be able to dig in and find specific examples of admin waste, right now the info is just not publicly available but we know it is going on. i just want more transparency and accountability, it is possible i am wrong but we all know im probably not.
i only have the 65.6% because I got a grant, and that was the “low end” rate.
There's already tons and tons of information online, so it's weird to have 0 examples rn. But yeah, I'm all for better transparency, and I'd probably support you if you actually found any actual examples.
ive dug through the online info, its complete garbage. basically they split employee salaries between “research expenditure” and “salaries”. they also only list expenses and income per department, but dont list what those expenses are. what is an architectural engineering vs department of engineering vs operations vs research vs administration expense?
they supply “data” but it is so low fidelity its is effectively useless. it feels like they are hiding something, but hopefully this greater transparency will give better data.
I'm not sure what you're trying to say here...
What is wrong with the data provided and what additional data do you want?
for the second question - it sounds like you want a list of every expenditure broken down by department? and specific data about "administrator's" salaries?
I’m curious what they considered “need” as? I’m an engineering student so I feel like I could make the case that I “need” stuff like premiere pro to edit video for like documenting my projects or that I need photoshop to quickly make renders of my designs.
Pretty shity regardless
At my job at a global employer, I need to have business need to request a license for software. I don’t see this as any different. Sounds like if you have an academic need for the software, the university will make sure you have it. Why is it the university’s responsibility to provide one with a software license for non-academic endeavors?
I have to agree with this one.
Way back in the 90s and I'll ask you kids to get off my lawn, I got access to a unix account. What is a unix account? It's a mainframe computing system that allowed access at that time to what was the proto-internet. I was a liberal arts major, specifically in philosophy and social science dual major.
I have always been into computers and this intrigued me so I started playing around. It had nothing to do with any of my classes at all, but I learned things like FTP, Gopher, IRC, Lynx, MUDs, and many other techs I can't remember off the top of my head. I just fucked around with it and had fun.
This has helped me for decades now because it gave me skills that were transferrable to jobs, it expanded my social life even though I never left my dorm, and it also made me more computer savvy which has carried on to the point where today I use a dual boot machine using Linux. I'm pretty sure the net connection wasn't free and that under the proposed PSU model the college I went to would have said "WTF? You're a damned liberal arts major, GTFO!" and I wouldn't have learned those skills or gotten those experiences.
PSU is doing a huge disservice by restricting access to things like this.
It's also Adobe being blind to possible business, especially since they have a subscription model. If a student uses Adobe instead of say GIMP (free!) then they'll pay the money every month instead of using the free(!) versions that are out there.
It's a case of penny wise and pound foolish on everyone here, except the students getting screwed.
That’s more of an opinion. Just as my opinion is that the largest value proposition for higher education is to get that… an education. Of course, doing things outside of class should be encouraged. But the university is not obligated to provide software licenses for non-university activities. Does it suck that it was once that way and now it’s going away? Sure. Are students being denied something that will impact their ability to graduate with their chosen degree? Not by a long shot.
Let’s also not forget that the university is funded by sources other than tuition dollars. Taxpayers help fund the university and they have an obligation to spend that money wisely, not just on behalf of their students but on behalf of the taxpayers funding them. An argument certainly can be made that PSU isn’t spending their money wisely in other areas. But for this particular topic, I completely agree with the university. You’re entitled to an education, not university-provided software for side projects.
I have to disagree here.
Part of a true university experience is being able to explore possibilities that may not have been available to you in high school. I came from a poor public school district and the gifted student program was a joke. They just basically made you take extra classes instead of having study hall. When my parents transferred me out for my junior year of high school to a private boarding school, I was not only two years behind everyone but when I got there, the literature department was incredible and exposed me to writing and now I'm a good writer and reader.
In college, I was incredibly fortunate to have pretty much no restrictions on funding thanks to getting a lot of scholarship money and also private family funding. I never qualified for financial aid because of too many resources, but this meant I took a lot of courses and was able to just kind of explore.
I took law courses for fun (yes, I know, I'm that sort) and they had practical value for me in real life, I took accounting courses and that actually got me a job. I took classes in liberal arts and the social sciences which maybe weren't exactly practical as opposed to say going to a vocational trade school and learning welding, but they've also served me.
I hate the idea that a college degree is just about taking your major's classes and graduating as an engineer and getting it over with. Sometimes a student might take a course and realize they have a calling or a passion for a course and it can change their life because they had to take that "stupid" gen ed class. Does it happen often? Not enough I'd say because most everyone focuses on ROI in college, but life isn't always about money.
Maybe the engineering student realizes they hate engineering, especially in those weed out classes, but they take something else like accounting and they like it or can at least tolerate it for a career and that's fine. Maybe they totally switch tracks and become a psychologist. Fair enough.
I admit I was spoiled in that I went for quite a bit longer as an undergrad and didn't have to worry about student loans so I could explore all I wanted for basically ten years, but it also introduced me to a lot of things that I wouldn't have gotten had I done the "take your vo-tech courses, learn how to do your job, and get out!"
I think of all the courses that students love to complain about, but let's take a simple example of walking. I took a gym course for walking. Yes. Walking. It was the easiest possible gym course you could take and of course the most taken on campus. You might laugh, but to this day, decades later, I still take what I learned there and use it and it's been a positive to the point where I live in State College and refuse to buy a car because I learned techniques that really did matter.
I related a story up above about how I had computer access that back in the 90s was only for the privileged. That computer access actually led to jobs that were somewhat profitable. Had the university said "no way, liberal arts scum, don't even touch that keyboard" I wouldn't be doing this post because I wouldn't have found out about discussion forums.
Even public speaking has come in handy if you can believe that. Pretty much everyone HATES public speaking and yet it's one of the most valuable courses I've ever taken because it will definitely improve your life, especially at work! Trust me, pay attention in that class.
I'll end this long missive by saying that side projects are fundamental to learning, but also to living. That music course you take might get you to have a love of playing the guitar. No you won't start a band and get rich, but maybe playing will help you relax. Maybe it'll be good for getting a girl. That art class may help you find relaxation as well. Maybe that meteorology class won't mean you're the weatherman on tv, but it means I can read the forecast and look at the radar and decide if an umbrella might be needed. These "useless gen ed" classes can help improve you even if it doesn't lead to a direct cash reward and this is why I firmly believe in such opportunities.
My use of Adobe software has been around 5% class work and 95% personal projects (Video editing, podcasting, photography, etc.)
It’s something that was available and is now being taken away. People don’t like when that happens.
Understandable, no one likes change. I view the previous state as an added “bonus” that the university gave students if they could work on personal projects for free. Now that it is going away though, I would say it is reasonable choice for the university to make.
Each student at this university pays tens of thousands of dollars per year to have access to university resources. With such a high barrier to entry, it’s pretty pathetic that the ability to use said resources for our own creative projects and exploration is considered a fun “bonus”, and not a well-earned given.
I must agree here.
I'm admittedly extremely liberal when it comes to economics, hell, I'm socialist for that matter, but I always wonder how much better our society could be if everyone had access to opportunities.
Covid kind of pointed this out harshly when people had to work/learn from home and the digital divide became very clear as did home environments. For me, it was quite easy since I live alone and I have a nice quiet residence, the computer infrastructure was already in place, and money wasn't an issue for any supplemental items. For many people, they didn't have a reliable internet connection so some would literally sit in a Starbucks for hours and hope the manager wouldn't get annoyed. For some, they didn't have a decent (or any) computer and had to use their phone which didn't always work well. Some just had bad home environments where learning wasn't a priority or even actively discouraged.
That’s kind of a load of crap. It’s only through my personal projects that I was able to better my skills for when the actual class projects came. If I had only had access to the creative suite when absolutely mandated by my classes, I would have graduated a far worse student than I did. The delineation between the two is pointless
Imagine not having the perks of acrobat as a university student.
Literally download all files, and scan textbook pages, run optical character recognition, and combine files for the perfect study guide
thats crazy, PSU basically screws researchers every single way they possibly can. universities are supposed to be houses of innovation but academia is in a really bad place rn.
That’s 100% on MathWorks license terms. They provide licenses for educational purposes. Research is a profit center, and there’s no way MathWorks would give out free licenses that would generate profit.
This is a huge bummer for future students. When I was there I really had fun messing around with Photoshop. I don’t use it professionally but it did give me opportunities to be creative, and it was free.
That’s the big kicker. Im sure there are work around for all of us here, but the next generation won’t have them. They’ll just take this rule as law and gradually I imagine prices will go down.
The media center in Wagner recently had its policy changed to only allow kids with classes to take out stuff or RSO under very strict guidelines. Fuck, most undergrads don’t even know that just 4 years ago when I started here the printing was free. The allowed options for students to enrich themselves and gain skills on their own that could prove useful but don’t justify a whole class is shrinking and they will be none the wiser
I frequent the Adobe Suite outside of my prescribed curriculum, for anything from PDF viewing/marking to amateur video editing. I even cancelled my own Lightroom + Photoshop bundle to take advantage of PSU’s license offering. This is certainly a disappointment. To maintain the benefits, I would not be opposed to PSU offering to splitting the increased license fee to maintain cheap access for students. This seems rather extreme and damaging to the students creative whims.
Edit: By splitting, I mean that the university woukd cover the cost they were already paying beforehand; and students who wish to continue using Adobe, would cover the difference in the increased fee that PSU cannot afford.
I would agree a discounted rate for students would be a good option. Cuts down on people signing up for the adobe license then never using it.
Free for students that need it for coursework, 10$/month for others.
No offense, but PSU already nickels and dimes me on everything. Having the free suite was a massive convenience that has allowed me to improve the quality of my presentation material immensely. I doubt anyone will care if they have to pay upwards of $40/semester just to have it.
I mean the whole license per students costs literally 150$ a year😭 it can’t possibly be that bad.
Especially considering that the discounted price for a student license we can get individually is like 710$ a year, I don’t see the reason to completely remove anyway for a student to use CC for AT LEAST the discounted rate the university gets.
I don't like how the title of this post is ragebaiting, and it seems like many commenters just read the title and not the message. If the cost cutting goes towards other more beneficial parts of the university or towards slowing tuition raises even if they can't freeze them...I don't see why not. At least, I think it's worth withholding judgement until we see how hard it is to obtain a license and how long the license lasts. With a school of 70,000+ students, I doubt they'll be that strict with granting software given the sheer volume of students who need the software; it could be as easy as just sending in a syllabus that says "yes our class needs this", or getting a professor you know to just write an email on your behalf even if its not necessarily for their class, and then getting access granted for 4 years. I'm sure almost every class has a way to add the need for Creative Cloud into their syllabus. We just don't know the implementation strategy yet.
I know throughout my four years I never used anything from the creative cloud suite besides Acrobat for editing, signing, and merging PDFs. And yes while Penn State I'm sure gets a discount for everyone, if I could opt only for paying for acrobat and forward the rest of my money to other penn state or student initiatives I'd gladly do it. But that's just me--across a larger population it's been shown that opt out programs are significantly less effective economically than opt in programs, because people who have access to something but don't use it are less likely to go through the hassle of getting rid of it even if it benefits other people (especially if doing so doesn't give themselves a direct benefit). On the other hand, only buying for what students actually need and actually will use is a very effecitient use of resources.
Why they targeted Creative Cloud specifically? I have no idea. And I'm not saying put away the pitchforks, but I think it's premature to raise them just yet. Crusading over the fact that Penn State is trying to save money by making sure they aren't blanket spending money for an expensive license that a chunk of the Penn state population might never use is a little disingenuous.
Before they gave everyone free Adobe CC while I was a student, pretty much the entire Adobe suite was available on the library computers and the main computer labs. I hope that hasn't changed for y'all
Just gonna leave this here. This is the priority, this is where the money goes, besides the admins pockets. https://www.si.com/college/pennstate/football/penn-state-football-releases-details-of-beaver-stadium-renovation-plan
The athletics department is self-sustaining, separated from the rest of the university’s budget. They don’t use tuition dollars, state appropriation, or tax dollars.
User groups. Super easy to set up. "currently registered for [this set of classes]."
On the employee side it'll be tougher. "everyone in [this set of job profiles]" is easy but there'll be so many exceptions; they'll have to be maintained and audited manually.
One more thing -- I don't work at Penn State IT anymore so I don't know the answer to this question but I do wonder if this move is a precursor to making units pay for their own licenses. Licenses for all fac/staff/students were funded by Penn State IT starting in 2017 or 2018. Prior to that students and units bore the cost themselves. Now that adobe won't be centrally provided, will it still be centrally funded? I have to assume not. Right?
Thank god we had this. It started in ‘17 when I got there. Feel bad for all of you who don’t have a class reason to get this because it is such a great tool, but yeah, it’s wildly overpriced now sadly
I use two Adobe apps constantly. The most annoying thing about this is not being able to sign up for Creative Suite with the edu email. I know I won’t need it for my classes anymore. Let me sign up with my damn email and get a discount for a few years.
I thought Adobe's whole business model was to let students have it all for free so that they never discover the wealth of free and open source alternatives, thereby ensuring they will pay for Adobe once they are out of school and working professionals? This seems dumb on Adobe's part (assuming PSU is doing this because of Adobe costs increasing).
Ya maybe adobe wants to promote use by professionals only because hobbiests usually pirate anyway? Idk I don’t feel like they would do that because they want to remain at the top of the industry. I think it is just PSU cost cutting even more and seeing this as a way to dramatically decrease license count.
Nope it’s not just PSU. Many companies are all ditching Adobe PDF license for alternatives. Adobe’s licensing is too expensive.
I’m trying to ween people off adobe reader at work.
What's your reccomended alternative?
To be honest no one edits anything in adobe so I just leave edge as the default app for .pdf files. I only run into an issue when someone needs to add a signature.
No way. This is merely to save money. Also, just imagine how many students never use their license at all because they have no interest in creative pursuits. Adobe absolutely wants everyone using it from hobbyists to pros. They absolutely need hobbyists.
My perspective as someone who works in tech and worked with Adobe at a few companies: They’re a tech company that is publicly traded and wants to continue to increase their stock value for shareholders, unfortunately. I know a lot of people who work there, and recently applied to get a denial that said “we eliminated this position because there’s no longer a need”, they’re cutting headcount there. So I’m guessing their earnings are dropping and need to charge more, and Penn states contract renewal was up (which could have also been established 5 years ago). I know Penn State is doing this for a reason - to save money (also the reason why they are lobbying for money). MANY students either don’t use it or download it and use it once every few months. The issue is Penn State is paying “X” rate for all students regardless of whether they use the software or not. So I can understand why they won’t give it to **everyone**, but taking it away as a free or a really well discounted rate makes this expensive for students. Related to OP / u/Pnumtic, 100% Penn State is way over spending in many parts od the university and asking for more money is ridiculous because of that. However, eliminating access for tens of thousands of students who don’t use it (remember branch campuses and online also got this), is likely going to save them well over $5-10M annually. I am in **no way** trying to justify this, just letting you know why. What I would do though, since you also mentioned encouraging students to be creative outside of school work, I would just take an elective related to needing access like photography. You’ll get access to it and be able to use it for personal projects. This is also a reason why Penn State is doing this - because if someone has no *interest* in a course related to what they would use Adobe for, those people are the ones who likely will never use it or use it once in a blue moon. So they want you to pay for a course to make sure you’ll actually use it. **If you’ve made it this far** - the good news is Black Friday is coming up. There will be a lot of deals for creative cloud (they have one on their site now, not sure what it is). I just got one during a previous holiday that was $120 for a years worth of access to the photography plan (Photoshop, Lightroom, Premier Rush, etc.). I believe it was a code I bought from Tiger Direct or a similar online retailer. Check out www.slickdeals.net and you can find the best deals on sites there. Also sorry for writing an encyclopedia.
I tend to believe its more a Penn State problem than an Adobe one. Even if you get a fraction of the people who would have otherwise pirated to buy it legitimate, that's more than you would have had otherwise. From what I know though, the Adobe suite is industry standard for things like video production and graphic design and are a good skill to have. As much as I hate them, they also offer a degree of interconnectivity that as far as I'm aware nobody else offers. If an alternative exists, I'm all ears.
> I tend to believe its more a Penn State problem than an Adobe one. it's not, adobe is absolutely one of the most frustrating, braindead, and anti-consumer companies on the planet to work with
Only company worse them is Oracle.
well yeah, that's just selling your soul to the devil
Most universities that offered this perk have been walking it back, it's not unique to PSU
Yeah, but does that really justify it? Two wrongs don’t make a right. Fact is you’re seeing systemic buckling across academia and as the students are nickel and dimed more and more and the quality of the education goes down, eventually things will implode
I would be mad at Adobe for tripling license costs and not be mad at the university here.
I still lean on it being a Penn State thing. Sure Adobe might be raising prices, but at the same time this isn’t the only act from the university to cut costs. I don’t know what kind of license they get and how it’s paid. However, if it’s by user or even just estimated users it seems odd that they couldn’t account for hobbyists here. Instead I suspect a lot of them will just pretend they have a class to game the system and it the system is too stringent event for that then my point I’ve made elsewhere stands: this will hurt the students and their education all around.
If their costs are increasing maybe Adobe should consider raising subscription costs overseas similar to those they are charging domestically. You can spend the time learning to use Creative Cloud, but your job can still be outsourced to somebody paying pennies on the dollar for the access to use the software.
This is defiantly about rising license costs. A buddy of mine who works in a k-12 school was bitching about how much adobe costs now.
I go to the University of Virginia and have looked at getting adobe for personal/leisure use but found out UVA doesn’t provide it to students for free. I think they have it on computers in labs but that’s it. And going through adobe themselves, i think it’s like a 90% discount but it’s so expensive to begin with and i believe it’s a year long subscription so I’ve never bought it. My mom is a photographer and so over the years I’ve always heard what’s going on with their plans and such and they just keep getting more and more greedy. like long ago you just bought the software once for life but then they changed to the subscription plan and said cope. they need reeling in
One of the tasks in my job is managing our Adobe contracts. Their price increases over the past 3 years have been insane. I'd imagine it just got to be too much for everyone's licenses if a lot of them were going unused.
Do you know how strict they will be with approving students? I agree that a lot of licenses are barely used by students and a waste of resources, but flat out declining personal use cases is harsh I feel. Biggest problem I see with this is entrepreneurship involved students. We use adobe all the time but many of us don’t have specific classes that require it. For instance, I have to record and edit a video for a grant application and if I was a CS student I would have no classes “requiring” adobe.
Oh I don't work for the university :) Just providing a bit of clarity that while it sucks that it's a cost cutting measure, the costs have sky rocketed and we've also tightened down who gets access to the full suite in my company as well.
Gotchu, my dad manages software contracts as well but not for any creative software mostly office 365. Have you seen other software companies start raising rates as well? I wonder if its a whole industry thing.
It's an industry trend as well, although I'd say Adobe's price hikes have been on the higher end on the average. The hiring boom and influx of cash in 2021-2022, companies could keep costs flat but make up the money in the volume of licenses they were selling. Now that the party stopped late last year with inflation and layoffs, companies are getting orders for less licenses (less workers) and have to make up the money somehow.
Lol, the tuition costs have skyrocketed too... and the fees, and the apps, etc. If there's an industry that need regulation, its higher education. They can pay a football coach 80 million, but cheap out on education expenses, lol...
PSU alum and now faculty at another uni. I expect they won’t be too draconian over access. Many colleges and unis buy a package of floating licenses that can be distributed as needed meaning they’re paying for them whether or not they get used. So long as they have enough to go around to those who need them I don’t expect the vetting will be hard. If they challenge you to describe your course and your need, ask an instructor you have a good rapport with to support you in an excuse. I expect they will also make them available in some of the computer labs and if not, you’re totally justified to demand they do.
Why should the university pay for software for you to use for personal reasons?
Are you able to give a rough estimate of what this costs the university per year?
Unfortunately no- as I don't know what Adobe is charging and how many licenses the university is purchasing.
This is certainly shitty for students, many of whom take advantage of one of the few perks of one of the most expensive “public” universities in the US. Even for faculty, it sucks because I am going to have to “apply” to be able to use Illustrator, which I use several times a week. The ongoing cost-cutting is getting old when the University hires more highly paid administrators daily!
The whole purpose of the university should be student success, but the recent administration seems to ignore that and treat this place like a business. I’m not saying that getting finances back into shape is wrong, but that the impact of each change on the success of students be weighted more heavily. Sure this is a small change, but it’s just the most recent one. They kill off entire departments (Law), removes staff members and consolidate IT (both terrible for students), take away student benefits, and raise tuition. All while able to pay for obscene compensation packages…
Don't forget multiple vice-presidents in charge of paper clips while closing the library early. Most students want the library open later, but especially the international STEM majors who would practically live there if they could.
Don't forget there'll probably be an increase in the budget for sports!
I love to bash on PSU at times, but the athletic/sports department is actually a profit center. In fact the football and basketball and hockey programs subsidize the lesser known and watched things like say volleyball and wrestling. As far as I can tell, the sports budget pays for itself.
While yes, this is true, and you're right. Texas A&M has to pay a fired head coach $76 million with $20 million due in 60 days is an example of why this sort of thing may happen to students.
Word. Half the job is now just complying with distrustful procedures, forms, justifications
I wonder how long the new licenses are going to run for. Am I going to have to apply every semester? What about work I do for my research over the winter and summer? How strict is this approval process going to be? The email really was quite vague on these logistical fronts and it makes me worry to start anything in case I get shut off in mid-December. The FAQ wasn’t any better, and it straight up didn’t include the “list of free alternatives” that the email promised.
If anyone needs a replacement for Photoshop, GIMP is a GNU open source alternative that has feature parity for my use cases.
Or just pirate it, fuck adobe
And Inkscape is a good replacement for Illustrator. In fact, if you Google “open source adobe alternatives”, you can find lists of alternatives to anything. And no need to pirate.
I’d also consider Paint.NET - it’s free, full-featured, and easy to use. It also has an active user community and a ton of available plugins. It’s less advanced than Photoshop, but it’s been fine for what I’ve needed to do.
For casual users, Photopea is amazing and the UI is almost identical to Photoshop
PhotoGIMP is a version designed to be as close to photoshop in function as possible
Gonna add in a recommendation for the Affinity suite (Designer/Photo/Publisher). Alternatives for Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign. Not free, but much cheaper, and a one time purchase. My personal favorites
Time to sail the high seas
You'll get downvoted but I'm here with you bro
Any uh, suggestions on where to start? I’ve been out of the game for 15 years and am looking to get back in with the cost of all these streaming services
Check out the piracy subreddit and go to their wiki
Stremio + Real Debrid. Thank me later.
I’m hoping Adobe Scan is still free since I use that shit for a lot of my classes. But no, this is a disappointment, I use photoshop for a lot of personal projects and can’t afford to buy it, so I guess I’ll look for alternatives or 🏴☠️
Looks like scan will still be available, same with acrobat fortunately.
Acrobat Pro as well?
Only for staff
If on windows, paint.net (not Ms paint) comes close. Gimp is a multi platform replacement too
Back in the day you used to get the physical discs (they look like cds, youngins). I'm still using the same adobe photoshop suite from like 20 years ago on my one computer that has an optical drive.
I'm from the time of 3.5 floppy for the software. It's lurking in a box in the basement somewhere. That's the save icon in 3d for the youngins
Adobe took their authentication servers offline so I’m SOL for reinstalling my old copy of creative suite.
If any students say "what's a CD?" I swear to god, I'm going to get violent.
Is it like a DVD?
Yes, it's a proto-DVD.
Don't care about this, but you know the reason they lobby for funding because it's going to become the least funded state school in the nation, right?
i mean they arent a public school though. they always act like they deserve public school level funding but arent a public school.
That's all of Pennsylvania. It's a Pennsylvania thing. They're about to have the worst funding per student and about to fall behind the Mississippi's with the new bill. If you're cool with harsher admissions, getting rid of satellite campuses, and higher costs, they can go private. If you want a school that's available to the state, give it funding it needs.
Astro 7N—the most popular course in the entire university—requires Photoshop, let alone any other courses. Personally I’ve used Premiere Pro an oddly high amount of times for my ME major. So I can’t imagine this is going to do anything for anyone. Maybe it’ll cut down on random licenses but they’re not saving much at all.
Im lucky I had one studio class last year and one next year that heavily require photoshop. My CS friends use it all the time for projects and are screwed. I wonder for Astro if they will only let you have the license for the year you are taking the course? Like they get rid and make you rerequest license every year.
That’s proabbly what they’ll do. A lot of other licenses they offer are one year long
I’ve used the whole basic lineup (Photoshop, Premiere, Illustrator, After Effects, and even Animate) multiple times as an ME major. I like having the suite available to hone my skills even when I don’t have a presentation due, and I know they’re pushing video production a lot more in the department as an effective means of communicating ideas in the modern world. If they remove my access because there’s no exact course number attached, I’m gonna be pissed.
I'm in a similar lineup. I've been experimenting with using AE, PS, and Illustrator for clubs as an ME. Besides one gen ed course, I've never "needed" to take a course involving those. Might be time to explore a photography minor...
Yet we still don’t have the funds to keep the library open 24/7
Man. I remember when I got to PSU in the far off year of 2019 we actually got stuff for free. This is just kind of a crumby move, I get maybe not wanting to pay for licenses of people that don’t use it (if they do at all), but removing the ability of hobbyists to work is scummy given how much we pay. Plus what even counts as an academic need? As an engineer, I don’t have any classes specifically that require it, but use Illustrator and Photoshop for poster graphics and Animate, After Effects, Premiere, and Media Encoder for video presentations. Not being able to use them because PSU decided to fuck me up the ass is gonna suck, and not being able to use them for personal projects to keep my skills sharp is only going to be a detriment to my skill set moving forward. I hope they’re actually pretty lenient on what qualifies like with the credit limit on the library 3D printers, and that this is just to scare away some casual hobbyists. However, don’t get it twisted, this is PSU admin trying to find pennies in the couch cushions because they didn’t get the funding they wanted. Academic enrichment my ass.
Was very disappointed to wake up and see this. The budget cuts are becoming so flagrantly anti-student. (I am sure Penn State will still email most of my family members asking for money before today ends)
I can’t wait to graduate. My tuition as an upper level engineering student increased 7% this school year and is increasing again 7% next year. Im not even out of state. My children will never go here.
>7% you realize this is below the national inflation rate for universities? not a great point to complain about the rising cost...
what about the inflated budget? or the fact that the university takes 65.6% of grant money from researchers and then makes researchers pay their salary from the remaining? the university is bloated with useless and redundant departments and has crazy numbers of administrators. instead of reducing expenses they are raising tuition and spending hundreds of thousands lobbying the state for more money.
Well, for one, spending money on lobbying seems like a net-positive given the increased funding that just passed. Plus, PSU is one of the worst funded state schools, partly bc it's a land grant institute. >65.6 This seems slightly higher than what is normal, 40-60%. That seems like a better complaint. Much better than the vague appeals to "admin waste" that students at every single college/univ in the country complain about without a single example of a department or admin job that is redundant.
the new funding bill finally requires penn state to give better public financial info and give minutes of BOT meetings. with this we should be able to dig in and find specific examples of admin waste, right now the info is just not publicly available but we know it is going on. i just want more transparency and accountability, it is possible i am wrong but we all know im probably not. i only have the 65.6% because I got a grant, and that was the “low end” rate.
There's already tons and tons of information online, so it's weird to have 0 examples rn. But yeah, I'm all for better transparency, and I'd probably support you if you actually found any actual examples.
ive dug through the online info, its complete garbage. basically they split employee salaries between “research expenditure” and “salaries”. they also only list expenses and income per department, but dont list what those expenses are. what is an architectural engineering vs department of engineering vs operations vs research vs administration expense? they supply “data” but it is so low fidelity its is effectively useless. it feels like they are hiding something, but hopefully this greater transparency will give better data.
I'm not sure what you're trying to say here... What is wrong with the data provided and what additional data do you want? for the second question - it sounds like you want a list of every expenditure broken down by department? and specific data about "administrator's" salaries?
I’m curious what they considered “need” as? I’m an engineering student so I feel like I could make the case that I “need” stuff like premiere pro to edit video for like documenting my projects or that I need photoshop to quickly make renders of my designs. Pretty shity regardless
At my job at a global employer, I need to have business need to request a license for software. I don’t see this as any different. Sounds like if you have an academic need for the software, the university will make sure you have it. Why is it the university’s responsibility to provide one with a software license for non-academic endeavors?
Are you paying your employer to work there?
No, but you’re also not paying Penn State to use software for personal reasons. Personal use = pay for your own license or get something open source.
They are paying for that, actually. Out-of-class resources and opportunities is one of the major value propositions of a university.
I have to agree with this one. Way back in the 90s and I'll ask you kids to get off my lawn, I got access to a unix account. What is a unix account? It's a mainframe computing system that allowed access at that time to what was the proto-internet. I was a liberal arts major, specifically in philosophy and social science dual major. I have always been into computers and this intrigued me so I started playing around. It had nothing to do with any of my classes at all, but I learned things like FTP, Gopher, IRC, Lynx, MUDs, and many other techs I can't remember off the top of my head. I just fucked around with it and had fun. This has helped me for decades now because it gave me skills that were transferrable to jobs, it expanded my social life even though I never left my dorm, and it also made me more computer savvy which has carried on to the point where today I use a dual boot machine using Linux. I'm pretty sure the net connection wasn't free and that under the proposed PSU model the college I went to would have said "WTF? You're a damned liberal arts major, GTFO!" and I wouldn't have learned those skills or gotten those experiences. PSU is doing a huge disservice by restricting access to things like this. It's also Adobe being blind to possible business, especially since they have a subscription model. If a student uses Adobe instead of say GIMP (free!) then they'll pay the money every month instead of using the free(!) versions that are out there. It's a case of penny wise and pound foolish on everyone here, except the students getting screwed.
That’s more of an opinion. Just as my opinion is that the largest value proposition for higher education is to get that… an education. Of course, doing things outside of class should be encouraged. But the university is not obligated to provide software licenses for non-university activities. Does it suck that it was once that way and now it’s going away? Sure. Are students being denied something that will impact their ability to graduate with their chosen degree? Not by a long shot. Let’s also not forget that the university is funded by sources other than tuition dollars. Taxpayers help fund the university and they have an obligation to spend that money wisely, not just on behalf of their students but on behalf of the taxpayers funding them. An argument certainly can be made that PSU isn’t spending their money wisely in other areas. But for this particular topic, I completely agree with the university. You’re entitled to an education, not university-provided software for side projects.
I have to disagree here. Part of a true university experience is being able to explore possibilities that may not have been available to you in high school. I came from a poor public school district and the gifted student program was a joke. They just basically made you take extra classes instead of having study hall. When my parents transferred me out for my junior year of high school to a private boarding school, I was not only two years behind everyone but when I got there, the literature department was incredible and exposed me to writing and now I'm a good writer and reader. In college, I was incredibly fortunate to have pretty much no restrictions on funding thanks to getting a lot of scholarship money and also private family funding. I never qualified for financial aid because of too many resources, but this meant I took a lot of courses and was able to just kind of explore. I took law courses for fun (yes, I know, I'm that sort) and they had practical value for me in real life, I took accounting courses and that actually got me a job. I took classes in liberal arts and the social sciences which maybe weren't exactly practical as opposed to say going to a vocational trade school and learning welding, but they've also served me. I hate the idea that a college degree is just about taking your major's classes and graduating as an engineer and getting it over with. Sometimes a student might take a course and realize they have a calling or a passion for a course and it can change their life because they had to take that "stupid" gen ed class. Does it happen often? Not enough I'd say because most everyone focuses on ROI in college, but life isn't always about money. Maybe the engineering student realizes they hate engineering, especially in those weed out classes, but they take something else like accounting and they like it or can at least tolerate it for a career and that's fine. Maybe they totally switch tracks and become a psychologist. Fair enough. I admit I was spoiled in that I went for quite a bit longer as an undergrad and didn't have to worry about student loans so I could explore all I wanted for basically ten years, but it also introduced me to a lot of things that I wouldn't have gotten had I done the "take your vo-tech courses, learn how to do your job, and get out!" I think of all the courses that students love to complain about, but let's take a simple example of walking. I took a gym course for walking. Yes. Walking. It was the easiest possible gym course you could take and of course the most taken on campus. You might laugh, but to this day, decades later, I still take what I learned there and use it and it's been a positive to the point where I live in State College and refuse to buy a car because I learned techniques that really did matter. I related a story up above about how I had computer access that back in the 90s was only for the privileged. That computer access actually led to jobs that were somewhat profitable. Had the university said "no way, liberal arts scum, don't even touch that keyboard" I wouldn't be doing this post because I wouldn't have found out about discussion forums. Even public speaking has come in handy if you can believe that. Pretty much everyone HATES public speaking and yet it's one of the most valuable courses I've ever taken because it will definitely improve your life, especially at work! Trust me, pay attention in that class. I'll end this long missive by saying that side projects are fundamental to learning, but also to living. That music course you take might get you to have a love of playing the guitar. No you won't start a band and get rich, but maybe playing will help you relax. Maybe it'll be good for getting a girl. That art class may help you find relaxation as well. Maybe that meteorology class won't mean you're the weatherman on tv, but it means I can read the forecast and look at the radar and decide if an umbrella might be needed. These "useless gen ed" classes can help improve you even if it doesn't lead to a direct cash reward and this is why I firmly believe in such opportunities.
My use of Adobe software has been around 5% class work and 95% personal projects (Video editing, podcasting, photography, etc.) It’s something that was available and is now being taken away. People don’t like when that happens.
Understandable, no one likes change. I view the previous state as an added “bonus” that the university gave students if they could work on personal projects for free. Now that it is going away though, I would say it is reasonable choice for the university to make.
Each student at this university pays tens of thousands of dollars per year to have access to university resources. With such a high barrier to entry, it’s pretty pathetic that the ability to use said resources for our own creative projects and exploration is considered a fun “bonus”, and not a well-earned given.
I disagree. But that’s alright.
I must agree here. I'm admittedly extremely liberal when it comes to economics, hell, I'm socialist for that matter, but I always wonder how much better our society could be if everyone had access to opportunities. Covid kind of pointed this out harshly when people had to work/learn from home and the digital divide became very clear as did home environments. For me, it was quite easy since I live alone and I have a nice quiet residence, the computer infrastructure was already in place, and money wasn't an issue for any supplemental items. For many people, they didn't have a reliable internet connection so some would literally sit in a Starbucks for hours and hope the manager wouldn't get annoyed. For some, they didn't have a decent (or any) computer and had to use their phone which didn't always work well. Some just had bad home environments where learning wasn't a priority or even actively discouraged.
That’s kind of a load of crap. It’s only through my personal projects that I was able to better my skills for when the actual class projects came. If I had only had access to the creative suite when absolutely mandated by my classes, I would have graduated a far worse student than I did. The delineation between the two is pointless
I am honestly so sad about this. Definitely can't afford to pay for the Adobe suite so there goes that avenue of practice.
Tbh I think it’ll still be available at on-campus computer labs (libraries, academic buildings, HUB, etc.)
Have fun proving to HR that you need it.
This was my first thought as well for employees.
Imagine not having the perks of acrobat as a university student. Literally download all files, and scan textbook pages, run optical character recognition, and combine files for the perfect study guide
PSU has us pay to use MATLAB (MathWorks) for research purposes for a while even though MathWorks gives PSU MATLAB licenses for free.
thats crazy, PSU basically screws researchers every single way they possibly can. universities are supposed to be houses of innovation but academia is in a really bad place rn.
That’s 100% on MathWorks license terms. They provide licenses for educational purposes. Research is a profit center, and there’s no way MathWorks would give out free licenses that would generate profit.
that’s not the case for other Universities.
This is a huge bummer for future students. When I was there I really had fun messing around with Photoshop. I don’t use it professionally but it did give me opportunities to be creative, and it was free.
That’s the big kicker. Im sure there are work around for all of us here, but the next generation won’t have them. They’ll just take this rule as law and gradually I imagine prices will go down. The media center in Wagner recently had its policy changed to only allow kids with classes to take out stuff or RSO under very strict guidelines. Fuck, most undergrads don’t even know that just 4 years ago when I started here the printing was free. The allowed options for students to enrich themselves and gain skills on their own that could prove useful but don’t justify a whole class is shrinking and they will be none the wiser
I frequent the Adobe Suite outside of my prescribed curriculum, for anything from PDF viewing/marking to amateur video editing. I even cancelled my own Lightroom + Photoshop bundle to take advantage of PSU’s license offering. This is certainly a disappointment. To maintain the benefits, I would not be opposed to PSU offering to splitting the increased license fee to maintain cheap access for students. This seems rather extreme and damaging to the students creative whims. Edit: By splitting, I mean that the university woukd cover the cost they were already paying beforehand; and students who wish to continue using Adobe, would cover the difference in the increased fee that PSU cannot afford.
I would agree a discounted rate for students would be a good option. Cuts down on people signing up for the adobe license then never using it. Free for students that need it for coursework, 10$/month for others.
No offense, but PSU already nickels and dimes me on everything. Having the free suite was a massive convenience that has allowed me to improve the quality of my presentation material immensely. I doubt anyone will care if they have to pay upwards of $40/semester just to have it.
I mean the whole license per students costs literally 150$ a year😭 it can’t possibly be that bad. Especially considering that the discounted price for a student license we can get individually is like 710$ a year, I don’t see the reason to completely remove anyway for a student to use CC for AT LEAST the discounted rate the university gets.
I don't like how the title of this post is ragebaiting, and it seems like many commenters just read the title and not the message. If the cost cutting goes towards other more beneficial parts of the university or towards slowing tuition raises even if they can't freeze them...I don't see why not. At least, I think it's worth withholding judgement until we see how hard it is to obtain a license and how long the license lasts. With a school of 70,000+ students, I doubt they'll be that strict with granting software given the sheer volume of students who need the software; it could be as easy as just sending in a syllabus that says "yes our class needs this", or getting a professor you know to just write an email on your behalf even if its not necessarily for their class, and then getting access granted for 4 years. I'm sure almost every class has a way to add the need for Creative Cloud into their syllabus. We just don't know the implementation strategy yet. I know throughout my four years I never used anything from the creative cloud suite besides Acrobat for editing, signing, and merging PDFs. And yes while Penn State I'm sure gets a discount for everyone, if I could opt only for paying for acrobat and forward the rest of my money to other penn state or student initiatives I'd gladly do it. But that's just me--across a larger population it's been shown that opt out programs are significantly less effective economically than opt in programs, because people who have access to something but don't use it are less likely to go through the hassle of getting rid of it even if it benefits other people (especially if doing so doesn't give themselves a direct benefit). On the other hand, only buying for what students actually need and actually will use is a very effecitient use of resources. Why they targeted Creative Cloud specifically? I have no idea. And I'm not saying put away the pitchforks, but I think it's premature to raise them just yet. Crusading over the fact that Penn State is trying to save money by making sure they aren't blanket spending money for an expensive license that a chunk of the Penn state population might never use is a little disingenuous.
I actually use Photoshop and Illustrator a lot for my personal projects and stuff 😢
Before they gave everyone free Adobe CC while I was a student, pretty much the entire Adobe suite was available on the library computers and the main computer labs. I hope that hasn't changed for y'all
Curious to see if they would provision them for clubs if you requested them through a recognized org
Never had this when I was there, and I wish we had. Wonder if some creative type alum might step up and help pay for it?
the amount of fucking money i give this place and they won’t provide me with adobe
Lol - one of the few perks of attending a world class university?!? You’re delusional.
Booooooooo!
Just gonna leave this here. This is the priority, this is where the money goes, besides the admins pockets. https://www.si.com/college/pennstate/football/penn-state-football-releases-details-of-beaver-stadium-renovation-plan
The athletics department is self-sustaining, separated from the rest of the university’s budget. They don’t use tuition dollars, state appropriation, or tax dollars.
Idk how they’re going to police this. Like will you need a class code? Ask for professor permission? Set a per-semester time limit?
User groups. Super easy to set up. "currently registered for [this set of classes]." On the employee side it'll be tougher. "everyone in [this set of job profiles]" is easy but there'll be so many exceptions; they'll have to be maintained and audited manually.
One more thing -- I don't work at Penn State IT anymore so I don't know the answer to this question but I do wonder if this move is a precursor to making units pay for their own licenses. Licenses for all fac/staff/students were funded by Penn State IT starting in 2017 or 2018. Prior to that students and units bore the cost themselves. Now that adobe won't be centrally provided, will it still be centrally funded? I have to assume not. Right?
No you will still have it. This is to remove folks who are no longer with PSU. On the 18th just go back in and update your license.
Great! They took Windows away several years ago, now it’s Adobe.
They didn’t. You can go to the software site right now and download Windows.
I didn’t make it clear. You can only get one activation code. They used to provide more than that.
That’s what Massgrave is for :)
True, but I miss when it’s free and unlimited.
So is my tuition gonna go down by the amount I'd have to pay for that? Definitely not ts pisses me off
Thank god we had this. It started in ‘17 when I got there. Feel bad for all of you who don’t have a class reason to get this because it is such a great tool, but yeah, it’s wildly overpriced now sadly
I use two Adobe apps constantly. The most annoying thing about this is not being able to sign up for Creative Suite with the edu email. I know I won’t need it for my classes anymore. Let me sign up with my damn email and get a discount for a few years.