You are right, it's common practice for unis to talk to them. A substantial portion is free or steeply discounted, but that's all about the uni and the organisation coming to an arrangement. They'll often have a 'contact us if you are an educational institution' part on their pricing page. Or if it's common and large enough company they might just have that as a purchase option. Looking at maxon and zbrush (art software I'm more familiar with), for the full suite it's 2k AUD annually individually, or 300AUD for a lab license, and 2.3k for teams, with students paying half the full license fee also (so 1k anually). 2.3k->300 is a steep discount to be sure, but it's not free. This is pretty typical.
They uni can't just assume it and take it for free. That's insane.
You are right, it's common practice for unis to talk to them. A substantial portion is free or steeply discounted, but that's all about the uni and the organisation coming to an arrangement. They'll often have a 'contact us if you are an educational institution' part on their pricing page. Or if it's common and large enough company they might just have that as a purchase option. Looking at maxon and zbrush (art software I'm more familiar with), for the full suite it's 2k AUD annually individually, or 300AUD for a lab license, and 2.3k for teams, with students paying half the full license fee also (so 1k anually). 2.3k->300 is a steep discount to be sure, but it's not free. This is pretty typical.
They uni can't just assume it and take it for free. That's insane.