Now that the educational license of Maya is no longer wide open, and easily abused, there has been a lot of chatter of why, and what, and what's next.
The big change, is that Autodesk will be following up to make sure that you actually are a student. Apparently before this. You could just click a box saying. "Yes, I am a student" , and voila you'd have a 3 year license.
Around late March, Autodesk changed the terms, and long story short, they want you to be using the educational license, if you are actually a student at one of the accredited schools.
Here is the actual full run down of all the "new" rules:
https://knowledge.autodesk.com/search-result/caas/simplecontent/content/term-length-for-educational-licenses.html?_ga=2.236381570.2020595051.1590440000-1478136999.1506994186
I've never used Maya Edu, so the decision was easy to go to Maya Indie at $250 a year. While being a pilot program, it seems like this may be the way of the future for the cheapest way to get Maya. Even Substance now has an indie version of Painter that is about the same price.
Maya Indie is a full fledged version of Maya , including an interactive license of Arnold. ( Granted I wish there was at least 1 batch render license).
There is still some confusion as to how long this program will survive, or about upgrading the following years,, ( Seems like you just re-subscribe for another indie year), but for now, it seems like a great option to me.
https://area.autodesk.com/maya-indie/
