I'm not sure what Creo's educational program is like, but with Pro/E they were very good... teachers who took an introductory course from a Pro/E certified teacher received a 300 seat license to use at their school. The license moved from school to school with the teacher. It was one of the most sensible educational programs that I've seen, and I organized a course for a couple dozen teachers, but for some reason Pro/E never 'clicked' with me.
The project that I'm doing with Solid Edge right now is constructing a 3D printable mini-sumo robot. I made one using Inventor last winter
http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:343916 and it is interesting to compare the process.
In Inventor I had to mess around with a lot of different dimensions to get the parts to fit properly... in Solid Edge I've been able to take references off of the other parts in my assembly much more easily. I basically put the gearbox, battery, sensors and circuit board in a suitable arrangement, then drew a box around them and have been whittling away at the box. In Inventor I started building the box and then kept adjusting it to try and fit around the parts.
It has hurt my brain a bit at times, but I'm starting to see some payback for my efforts. Solid Edge has some educator resources online at
http://www.plm.automation.siemens.co...dge/educators/ and their help system is really good (they've got a 'command finder' in the bottom corner of the screen that allows you to type in the command or term that you'd use in a different CAD package and it will translate it into Solid Edge terminology and highlight the appropriate icon, which is kind of cool).
I'm writing a couple articles about my experience with Solid Edge which I hope to see published this fall.
Jason